Forensic Analysis · Semiconductors · as of Aug 11, 2026
Ipg Photonics Corp (IPGP)
A forensic read on Ipg Photonics Corp 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
Safe
Financial health
19.4
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
133.2
P / E (ttm)
1.5%
ROE
$3.7B
Market cap
2.7%
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.
Ipg Photonics Corp earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 19.4, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+20.4%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +20.4% 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 inventory up +10% against -3% in cost of sales and PP&E up +8% against revenue +3%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 3% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
0.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 0.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 6% — well below its ~10% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
FCF ($3M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $53M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($3M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $75M — 71% 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.
$82M
FY2019–FY2020
Goodwill impairments.Took $82M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2019 ($37M), FY2020 ($45M)) — about 24% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.00B
Revenue Growth YoY+2.7%
Net Margin3.1%
Free Cash Flow-$3.5M
Return on Equity1.5%
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 Ipg Photonics Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?