A forensic read on Kulicke & Soffa Industries 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
Safe
Financial health
10.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
0.0%
ROE
-7.4%
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.
Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.8, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-0.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -0.3% in the latest fiscal year, against 4.0% in FY2023, having run between -9.0% and 4.0% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was $31M in FY2023 and ($2M) in FY2025, with operating income at 5.3% of revenue in FY2023, -13.1% in FY2024 and -0.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $789M in FY2023 to $765M in FY2025 (-3%), while the revenue it carried went from $742M to $654M. $322M of the $765M base at FY2025 is short-term investments (42.2%) — securities held beside cash, which the base keeps because only cash is subtracted from it; they earn the balance sheet's yield, which is not in the operating profit above, so the loss on the operating capital is larger than this rate shows. FY2023's operating profit carried a $22M asset write-down and a $10M goodwill write-off that took about 3.1 points off that year's return, and FY2025's carried a $40M asset write-down, a $19M goodwill write-off and a $957,000 restructuring charge that took about 5.1 points off the latest; so, net of each other, the two charges take about 2.0 points off the -4.3-point change across FY2023–FY2025. FY2024's operating profit carried a $44M asset write-down that alone took about 4.3 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.
157% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $151M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 157% of free cash flow. That is $55M (57%) more than free cash flow covered, and more than operating cash flow as well. It came out of the balance sheet's own liquid holdings, not new debt: cash and short-term investments fell $66M over FY2025. A payout past free cash flow draws the balance sheet down in every year it continues, which isn't sustainable indefinitely. Counting the $29M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 186%.
$29M
FY2023–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $29M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2023 ($10M), FY2025 ($19M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$654.1M
Revenue Growth YoY-7.4%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-6.1%
Net Margin0.0%
Free Cash Flow$96.4M
Return on Equity0.0%
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 Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?