Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 11, 2026
Kinetik Holdings Inc. (KNTK)
A forensic read on Kinetik Holdings 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
1.7
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
47.8
P / E (ttm)
$8.2B
Market cap
6.70%
Dividend yield
19.0%
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.
Kinetik Holdings Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.7, placing it in the Grey zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
2.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.2% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
32d
FY2018→FY2019
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 22 to 32 FY2018→FY2019 (against cost of goods sold; inventory -31% vs +4% in cost of sales). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.
n/m (stock split)
FY2022–FY2025
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed +50% over the last 3 years to FY2025, but that includes a large one-time change around FY2023 consistent with a stock split or reverse split, not gradual buybacks or issuance — a split changes the count with NO effect on any holder's proportional ownership, so the raw +14.6%/yr figure isn't a real buyback/dilution read here.
4% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 4% of revenue and 56% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $1.00 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 4.2% a year, small enough that totals and per-share results tell the same story.
331% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $370M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 331% of free cash flow, but 61% 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 $63M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 387%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.76B
Revenue Growth YoY+19.0%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+13.3%
Net Margin10.1%
Free Cash Flow$111.6M
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 Kinetik Holdings Inc.'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.
$1.0B
FY2020–FY2020
Goodwill impairments.Took $1.0B of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2020 ($1.0B)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Kinetik Holdings Inc. (KNTK) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy