Forensic Analysis · Water Utilities · as of Nov 11, 2026
Cadiz Inc (CDZI)
A forensic read on Cadiz Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-119.4%
ROE
69.8%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Cadiz Inc earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-18.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -18.2% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 1.3-point range. After-tax operating profit was ($17M) in FY2023 and ($20M) in FY2025, with operating income at -1051.7% of revenue in FY2023, -242.0% in FY2024 and -156.9% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +14% across FY2023–FY2025, from $97M to $111M, while the return fell 1.2 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the -17.0% the older base was already earning.
+11.1%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Basic share count changed +23% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+11.1%/yr). The count is growing — 65.7M shares in FY2023, 81.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~11.1% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2023 has been diluted ~19%.
32% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 32% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.07 per basic share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the basic count still rose about 11.1% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
FCF ($27M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $5M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($27M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
-15%
FY2024→FY2025
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~15% in FY2025 (from FY2024). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$16.3M
Revenue Growth YoY+69.8%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+186.2%
Net Margin-209.3%
Free Cash Flow-$26.5M
Return on Equity-119.4%
Debt / Equity3.13x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Cadiz Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?