Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Aug 11, 2026
E.L.F. Beauty, Inc. (ELF)
A forensic read on E.L.F. Beauty, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
5.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
221.5
P / E (ttm)
2.3%
ROE
$5.6B
Market cap
24.6%
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.
E.L.F. Beauty, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+63.7%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +63.7% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by receivables up +39% against revenue +25% and inventory up +18% against +27% in cost of sales. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 15% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
2.7%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.7% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 16% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+2.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2026
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +7% over the last 3 years to FY2026 (+2.4%/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 ~2.4% 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 ~7%.
5% of rev
FY2026
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 5% of revenue and 46% of free cash flow in FY2026 — about $1.46 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 2.4% a year and is falling.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.64B
Revenue Growth YoY+24.6%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+41.4%
Net Margin1.6%
Free Cash Flow$190.1M
Return on Equity2.3%
Debt / Equity0.74x
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 E.L.F. Beauty, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?