Forensic Analysis · Hospitality & Leisure · as of Sep 25, 2026
Penn Entertainment, Inc. (PENN)
A forensic read on Penn Entertainment, 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
-0.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-2.6
P / E (ttm)
-46.0%
ROE
$2.1B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
5.8%
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, valuation). 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.
Penn Entertainment, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads -0.6, placing it in the Distress zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-4.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -4.4% in the latest fiscal year, against -4.0% in FY2023, having run between -4.4% and 0.4% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($545M) in FY2023 and ($532M) in FY2025, with operating income at -10.8% of revenue in FY2023, 1.1% in FY2024 and -9.7% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -10% across FY2023–FY2025, from $13.6B to $12.1B, so this is a return struck on a smaller base rather than a record of money put to work. FY2023's operating profit carried a $131M asset write-down and a $30M goodwill write-off that took about 0.9 points off that year's return, and FY2025's carried a $945M asset write-down and a $832M goodwill write-off that took about 11.6 points off the latest; so, net of each other, the two charges take about 10.7 points off the -0.4-point change across FY2023–FY2025. FY2024's operating profit carried a $89M asset write-down and a $12M goodwill write-off that alone took about 0.6 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.
FCF ($140M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $354M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($140M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $508M — 70% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
$874M
FY2023–FY2025
Goodwill impairments.Took $874M of goodwill writedowns across 3 years (FY2023 ($30M), FY2024 ($12M), FY2025 ($832M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$6.96B
Revenue Growth YoY+5.8%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+4.6%
Net Margin-12.1%
Free Cash Flow-$139.5M
Return on Equity-46.0%
Debt / Equity1.58x
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 Penn Entertainment, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?