Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Aug 8, 2026
Mks Inc (MKSI)
A forensic read on Mks Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
5.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
63.1
P / E (ttm)
10.8%
ROE
$19.7B
Market cap
0.34%
Dividend yield
9.6%
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.
Mks Inc earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.2, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
6.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 6.3% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 4% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+4.2%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +13% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+4.2%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~4.2% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~12%.
1.4% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.4% of revenue and 11% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.81 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 4.3% a year and is falling.
$1.7B
FY2020–FY2023
Goodwill impairments.Took $1.7B of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2020 ($1M), FY2023 ($1.7B)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.93B
Revenue Growth YoY+9.6%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+3.5%
Net Margin7.5%
Free Cash Flow$497.0M
Return on Equity10.8%
Debt / Equity1.55x
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 Mks Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?