Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Sep 26, 2026
Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. (GO)
A forensic read on Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. 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
0.5
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-2.9
P / E (ttm)
-22.9%
ROE
$1.1B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
7.3%
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 (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern, valuation). 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.
Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.5, placing it in the Distress zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-6.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -6.6% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 3.9%. After-tax operating profit was $96M in FY2023 and ($175M) in FY2025, with operating income at 3.2% of revenue in FY2023, 1.8% in FY2024 and -4.7% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $2.5B in FY2023 to $2.7B in FY2025 (+8%), while the revenue it carried went from $4.0B to $4.7B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $488M went into capital expenditure and acquisitions against $200M of depreciation excluding $16M of intangible-asset amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference. FY2025's operating profit carried a $149M goodwill write-off, a $122M asset write-down and a $46M restructuring charge that alone took about 9.4 points off that year's return, so about 9.4 of the 10.5-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 $16M restructuring charge that alone took about 0.4 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.
stopped
FY2024→FY2025
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $81M of buybacks + dividends in FY2024, but ~$0 in FY2025. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
$149M
FY2025–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $149M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2025 ($149M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$4.69B
Revenue Growth YoY+7.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+8.6%
Net Margin-4.8%
Free Cash Flow$1.8M
Return on Equity-22.9%
Debt / Equity0.50x
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 Grocery Outlet Holding Corp.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?