Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Aug 11, 2026

General Mills Inc (GIS)

A forensic read on General Mills 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

2.9

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

-215.6

P / E (ttm)

-1.2%

ROE

$19.7B

Market cap

6.76%

Dividend yield

-5.4%

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.

General Mills Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

2.4%

FY2026

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 2.4% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 12% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

$1.6B

FY2024–FY2026

Goodwill impairments. Took $1.6B of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2024 ($117M), FY2026 ($1.5B)) — about 34% of net income over the span. A large writedown means an acquisition turned out worth far less than was paid — a real mark against M&A discipline.

112% of FCF

FY2026

Shareholder returns. Returned $1.8B to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2026 — 112% of free cash flow, but 84% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow, with the gap funded by debt or cash reserves rather than the cash the business itself throws off; the payout itself is still covered by operating cash. Counting the $79M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 117%.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$18.42B

Revenue Growth YoY-5.4%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+110.7%

Net Margin-0.5%

Free Cash Flow$1.63B

Return on Equity-1.2%

Debt / Equity1.83x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.