A forensic read on International Flavors & Fragrances Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-2.6%
ROE
-5.2%
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.
International Flavors & Fragrances Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.2, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-1.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -1.3% in the latest fiscal year, against -6.1% in FY2023, having run between -6.1% and 2.5% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($1.7B) in FY2023 and ($302M) in FY2025, with operating income at -18.4% of revenue in FY2023, 6.7% in FY2024 and -3.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -13% across FY2023–FY2025, from $27.4B to $23.8B, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on. FY2023's operating profit carried a $2.6B goodwill write-off and a $68M restructuring charge that took about 7.8 points off that year's return, and FY2025's carried a $1.2B goodwill write-off and a $70M restructuring charge that took about 4.1 points off the latest; so, net of each other, the two charges add about 3.7 points to the +4.8-point change across FY2023–FY2025. FY2024's operating profit carried a $64M goodwill write-off and a $29M restructuring charge that alone took about 0.3 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. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
175% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $447M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 175% of free cash flow, but 53% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow because the business is also funding heavy growth capex (usually debt-financed); the payout itself is covered by operating cash — sustainable as long as that spending is genuine expansion, not upkeep. Counting the $88M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 209%.
$3.8B
FY2023–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $3.8B of goodwill writedowns across 3 years (FY2023 ($2.6B), FY2024 ($64M), FY2025 ($1.2B)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
-38%
FY2023→FY2024
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~38% in FY2024 (from FY2023). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$10.89B
Revenue Growth YoY-5.2%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-2.6%
Net Margin-3.3%
Free Cash Flow$256.0M
Return on Equity-2.6%
Debt / Equity0.42x
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 International Flavors & Fragrances Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?