Forensic Analysis · Gas Distribution Utility · as of Nov 9, 2026
One Gas, Inc. (OGS)
A forensic read on One Gas, 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
0.9
Distress distance
4
Forensic signals
8.1%
ROE
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.
One Gas, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.9, 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
5.2%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 5.2% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.6-point range. After-tax operating profit was $321M in FY2023 and $376M in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $7.0B in FY2023 to $7.2B in FY2025 (+3%).
FCF ($128M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $161M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($128M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $579M — 28% of that. Capex and the payout together ran $289M past operating cash flow — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of. The balance sheet covered it: cash and short-term investments fell $93M and total debt rose $220M over FY2025.
+10.5%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +10.5% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by payables paid down 15% on the year and receivables up +13% on the year. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 5% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 10.5%. 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.Accruals ratio: the year-over-year change in net operating assets, relative to their own average.NOA (net operating assets): the money tied up in running the business, operating assets minus operating liabilities.
+4.1%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +8% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+4.1%/yr). The count is growing — 55.9M shares in FY2023, 60.5M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~4.1% 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 ~8%.
Key fundamentals
Free Cash Flow-$128.4M
Return on Equity8.1%
Debt / Equity0.76x
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 One Gas, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?