Forensic Analysis · Professional & Commercial Services · as of Sep 25, 2026
Kelly Services Inc (KELYA)
A forensic read on Kelly Services 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
Safe
Financial health
3.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
2
Forensic signals
-2.1
P / E (ttm)
-26.0%
ROE
$571M
Market cap
1.43%
Dividend yield
-1.9%
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.
Kelly Services Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-4.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -4.0% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 1.5%. After-tax operating profit was $22M in FY2023 and ($55M) in FY2025, with operating income at 0.5% of revenue in FY2023, -0.3% in FY2024 and -1.6% in FY2025. The capital base behind it cannot be compared across FY2023–FY2025: short-term debt is tagged in one of those two fiscal years and not the other, and an untagged line enters this calculation as zero, so any change in the base would be a change in what the filer tagged. FY2023's operating profit carried a $41M restructuring charge and a $2M asset write-down that took about 2.7 points off that year's return, and FY2025's carried a $102M goodwill write-off that took about 5.8 points off the latest; so, net of each other, the two charges take about 3.1 points off the -5.5-point change across FY2023–FY2025. FY2024's operating profit carried a $73M goodwill write-off, a $14M asset write-down and a $7M restructuring charge that alone took about 4.2 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.
$175M
FY2024–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $175M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2024 ($73M), FY2025 ($102M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$4.25B
Revenue Growth YoY-1.9%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-6.3%
Net Margin-6.0%
Free Cash Flow$114.1M
Return on Equity-26.0%
Debt / Equity0.10x
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 Kelly Services Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?