Kinetik Holdings Inc. (KNTK) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Sep 25, 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
1.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
44.2
P / E (ttm)
$8.6B
Market cap
8.17%
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, 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.
Kinetik Holdings Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.8, 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
2.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.2% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.3-point range. After-tax operating profit was $143M in FY2023 and $148M in FY2025, with operating income at 12.7% of revenue in FY2023, 12.1% in FY2024 and 9.3% in FY2025. The capital base behind it barely moved across FY2023–FY2025 ($6.2B to $6.8B, +9%), so there has been little new capital for that return to be earned on.
n/m (stock split)
FY2023–FY2025
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed -57% over the last 2 years to FY2025, but that includes a large one-time change around FY2024 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 -34.5%/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. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 4.2% a year, above the level at which the count is a material claim on a stake, and only one year's change is on file — enough to state what a holder gave up, not enough to say whether the rate is climbing or coming down. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
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 (2yr)+18.5%
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?