Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Sep 13, 2026
Coherent Corp. (COHR)
A forensic read on Coherent Corp. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
10.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
77.2
P / E (ttm)
7.4%
ROE
$58.9B
Market cap
0.02%
Dividend yield
22.5%
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 (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). 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.
Coherent Corp. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by inventory days.
What the filings flag
165d
FY2025→FY2026
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 132 to 165 FY2025→FY2026 (against cost of goods sold; inventory +80% vs +18% in cost of sales). Inventory is outrunning what's being sold — a flag for softening demand or obsolescence risk ahead.
5.3%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 5.3% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -0.2% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, and it has been across FY2023–FY2026, so reinvested dollars have not been earning their keep.
+12.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2026
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +42% over the last 3 years to FY2026 (+12.4%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~12.4% 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 ~30%.
3% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 3% of revenue in FY2026 — about $0.95 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 12.8% a year 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.
stopped
Key fundamentals
Net Margin11.3%
Debt / Equity0.30x
Free Cash Flow-$1.02B
Latest Revenue$7.12B
Return on Equity7.4%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+11.3%
Revenue Growth YoY+22.5%
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 Coherent Corp.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Sep 13, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
FY2020→FY2022
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $2M of buybacks + dividends in FY2020, but ~$0 in FY2022. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
+16.6%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +16.6% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by inventory up +80% against +18% in cost of sales and PP&E up +60% against revenue +23%. A cash-flow measure on the same base agrees: reported earnings ran ahead of operating cash by 6% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 16.6%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average.