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Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Oct 26, 2026

Noodles & Co (NDLS)

A forensic read on Noodles & Co built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.

F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Distress
Financial health
-4.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
2
Forensic signals
0.4%
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). 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.

Noodles & Co earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -4.9, placing it in the Distress zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

-10.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is -10.9% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from -1.3%. After-tax operating profit was ($4M) in FY2023 and ($25M) in FY2025, with operating income at -1.0% of revenue in FY2023, -5.6% in FY2024 and -6.4% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -23% across FY2023–FY2025, from $298M to $228M, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on.
stopped
FY2023→FY2025
Shareholder returns — halted. Capital returns have STOPPED — $5M of buybacks + dividends in FY2023, but ~$0 in FY2025. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$495.1M
Revenue Growth YoY+0.4%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-0.8%
Net Margin-8.6%
Free Cash Flow-$5.1M

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Oct 26, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.