Forensic Analysis · Chemicals · as of Nov 10, 2026
FMC Corp (FMC)
A forensic read on FMC 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
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-68.3%
ROE
-18.3%
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.
FMC Corp earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.4, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by cash conversion.
What the filings flag
0.55×
FY2023–FY2025
Cash conversion.Over FY2023–FY2025, cumulative operating cash flow was 0.55× cumulative net income before $1.4B of non-cash goodwill impairment. Reported profit is not turning into cash. The shortfall is profit tied up in working capital rather than collected — the accrual and receivables lines below show where.Cash conversion: operating cash flow divided by net income, the share of profit that arrived as cash.
-18.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -18.0% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 6.0%. After-tax operating profit was $500M in FY2023 and ($1.3B) in FY2025, with operating income at 12.4% of revenue in FY2023, 11.9% in FY2024 and -47.0% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -14% across FY2023–FY2025, from $8.3B to $7.1B, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on. FY2025's operating profit carried a $1.4B goodwill write-off and a $272M restructuring charge that alone took about 18.0 points off that year's return, so about 18.0 of the 24.0-point fall across FY2023–FY2025 is that charge landing in the latest year rather than the capital earning less. FY2024's operating profit carried a $303M restructuring charge that alone took about 3.3 points off that year's return; FY2024 sits between the two ends of FY2023–FY2025, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
FCF ($102M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $291M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($102M) 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.
$1.4B
FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $1.4B of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2025 ($1.4B)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.47B
Revenue Growth YoY-18.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-12.1%
Net Margin-64.6%
Free Cash Flow-$102.5M
Return on Equity-68.3%
Debt / Equity1.97x
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 FMC Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?