A forensic read on Maxlinear, 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
Distress
Financial health
-1.2
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-28.2%
ROE
29.7%
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 (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). 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.
Maxlinear, Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -1.2, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-18.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -18.2% in the latest fiscal year, against -4.5% in FY2023, having run between -28.6% and -4.5% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($30M) in FY2023 and ($100M) in FY2025, with operating income at -5.5% of revenue in FY2023, -62.0% in FY2024 and -27.1% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -18% across FY2023–FY2025, from $671M to $551M, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on. FY2023's operating profit carried a $20M restructuring charge that took about 2.3 points off that year's return, and FY2025's carried a $25M restructuring charge that took about 3.5 points off the latest; so, net of each other, the two charges take about 1.2 points off the -13.7-point change across FY2023–FY2025. FY2024's operating profit carried a $53M restructuring charge that alone took about 6.8 points off that year's return; FY2024 sits between the two ends of FY2023–FY2025, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it.
285% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $20M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 285% of free cash flow. That is $13M (185%) more than free cash flow covered, and more than operating cash flow as well. The balance sheet covered it: cash fell $46M and total debt rose $622,000 over FY2025. A payout past free cash flow draws the balance sheet down in every year it continues, which isn't sustainable indefinitely. Counting the $77M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 1383%.
+3.6%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +7% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+3.6%/yr). The count is growing — 80.7M shares in FY2023, 86.6M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~3.6% 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 FY2023 has been diluted ~7%.
16% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 16% of revenue and 1099% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.89 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 3.6% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. 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.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$467.6M
Revenue Growth YoY+29.7%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-17.9%
Net Margin-29.2%
Free Cash Flow$7.0M
Return on Equity-28.2%
Debt / Equity0.27x
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 Maxlinear, Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?