Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Sep 25, 2026
Malibu Boats, Inc. (MBUU)
A forensic read on Malibu Boats, 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
3.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
277.0
P / E (ttm)
0.3%
ROE
$457M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
13.3%
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.
Malibu Boats, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.2, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+21.1%
FY2025→FY2026
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +21.1% relative to their own average in FY2026 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash. An accrual is a claim that still has to be collected or written down, so the gap resolves in a later period whichever way it goes. The build is led by receivables up +45% against revenue +13% and inventory up +27% against +16% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 12% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 21.1%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
0.3%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 0.3% in the latest fiscal year, against -7.7% in FY2024, having run between -7.7% and 2.9% across FY2024–FY2026 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($44M) in FY2024 and $2M in FY2026, with operating income at -6.7% of revenue in FY2024, 2.7% in FY2025 and 0.3% in FY2026. The capital base behind it grew +23% across FY2024–FY2026, from $574M to $706M, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the -7.7% the older base was already earning. FY2024's operating profit carried a $49M goodwill write-off that alone took about 6.8 points off that year's return, so about 6.8 of the 8.0-point rise across FY2024–FY2026 is that charge leaving the base year rather than the capital earning more.
$49M
FY2024–FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $49M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2024 ($49M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$914.6M
Revenue Growth YoY+13.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+5.0%
Net Margin0.2%
Free Cash Flow$42.8M
Return on Equity0.3%
Debt / Equity0.31x
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 Malibu Boats, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?