Forensic Analysis · Utilities · as of Aug 14, 2026
Global Water Resources, Inc. (GWRS)
A forensic read on Global Water Resources, 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
0.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
120.5
P / E (ttm)
3.4%
ROE
$256M
Market cap
3.99%
Dividend yield
5.8%
Revenue growth
The financial-health reading above compares this company's equity at BOOK value, not at what the market currently pays for it — this free snapshot doesn't pull live market data. Treat it as a rough read, not the final word.
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.
Global Water Resources, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.3, placing it in the Distress zone (based on book value, not market value, since this free snapshot doesn't pull live market data — treat this zone as a rough read, not the final word). 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+29.3%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +29.3% relative to their own average in FY2025 — 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 +16% against revenue +6%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 9% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 29.3%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
1.1%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 1.1% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~6% cost of capital, and it has been across FY2016–FY2025, so reinvested dollars have not been earning their keep.
+5.1%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +16% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+5.1%/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 ~5.1% 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 FY2022 has been diluted ~14%.
1.5% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.5% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.03 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 5.2% a year and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$55.8M
Revenue Growth YoY+5.8%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+7.6%
Net Margin5.3%
Free Cash Flow-$47.2M
Return on Equity3.4%
Debt / Equity1.54x
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 Global Water Resources, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 14, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Global Water Resources, Inc. (GWRS) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
FCF ($47M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $8M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($47M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $20M — 41% of that. 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.