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Forensic Analysis · Professional & Commercial Services · as of Nov 9, 2026

Shift4 Payments, Inc. (FOUR)

A forensic read on Shift4 Payments, 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
Distress
Financial health
1.0
Distress distance
1
Forensic signals
10.6%
ROE
25.5%
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 (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.

Shift4 Payments, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.0, placing it in the Distress zone. 1 forensic signal was flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

5.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 5.5% in the latest fiscal year, against 4.6% in FY2023, having run between 4.6% and 7.3% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was $104M in FY2023 and $265M in FY2025, with operating income at 4.5% of revenue in FY2023, 7.4% in FY2024 and 8.4% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +115% across FY2023–FY2025, from $2.2B to $4.8B, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the 4.6% the older base was already earning.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$4.18B
Revenue Growth YoY+25.5%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+27.7%
Net Margin2.8%
Free Cash Flow$624.0M
Return on Equity10.6%
Debt / Equity3.15x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Nov 9, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.

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