Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 11, 2026
Krispy Kreme, Inc. (DNUT)
A forensic read on Krispy Kreme, 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
Distress
Financial health
-2.7
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-6.2
P / E (ttm)
-79.3%
ROE
$536M
Market cap
1.07%
Dividend yield
-8.6%
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). 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.
Krispy Kreme, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -2.7, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-17.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -17.2% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 1% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
FCF ($64M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $13M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($64M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $34M — 39% of that. 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.
+0.7%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed +2% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+0.7%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
$356M
FY2025–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $356M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2025 ($356M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
-57%
FY2021→FY2022
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~57% in FY2022 (from FY2021) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.52B
Revenue Growth YoY-8.6%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-0.2%
Net Margin-33.9%
Free Cash Flow-$64.0M
Return on Equity-79.3%
Debt / Equity1.50x
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 Krispy Kreme, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?