Forensic Analysis · Technology / Software · as of Aug 11, 2026
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (HPE)
A forensic read on Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co 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
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
44.7
P / E (ttm)
0.2%
ROE
$73.3B
Market cap
1.09%
Dividend yield
13.8%
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.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.4, placing it in the Grey zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+38.4%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +38.4% 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 +49% against revenue +14% and payables paid down 30% on the year. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 8% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
-0.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -0.7% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 2% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
$3.3B
FY2020–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $3.3B of goodwill writedowns across 3 years (FY2020 ($865M), FY2022 ($905M), FY2025 ($1.6B)) — about 39% 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.
+0.1%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed +0% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+0.1%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($202M) are about offsetting stock comp ($643M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
141% of FCF
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$34.30B
Revenue Growth YoY+13.8%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+6.4%
Net Margin0.2%
Free Cash Flow$627.0M
Return on Equity0.2%
Debt / Equity0.86x
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 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (HPE) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $886M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 141% of free cash flow, but 30% 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 $643M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 244%.