Marcus Corp (MCS) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy
Forensic Analysis · Media / Entertainment / Streaming · as of Aug 11, 2026
Marcus Corp (MCS)
A forensic read on Marcus Corp 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
2.1
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
40.2
P / E (ttm)
2.8%
ROE
$923M
Market cap
1.18%
Dividend yield
3.1%
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.
Marcus Corp earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.1, placing it in the Grey zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
1.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 1.9% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
-0.2%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed -1% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (-0.2%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
1.0% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.0% of revenue and 759% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.24 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 2.0% a year and is falling.
926% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $9M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 926% of free cash flow, but 11% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow, with the gap funded by debt or cash reserves rather than the cash the business itself throws off; the payout itself is still covered by operating cash. Counting the $8M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 1685%.
-73%
FY2012→FY2013
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~73% in FY2013 (from FY2012) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$758.5M
Revenue Growth YoY+3.1%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+3.8%
Net Margin1.7%
Free Cash Flow$989,000.00
Return on Equity2.8%
Debt / Equity0.35x
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 Marcus Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?