Forensic Analysis · Consumer Staples / Food & Beverage · as of Aug 11, 2026
Post Holdings, Inc. (POST)
A forensic read on Post Holdings, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.7
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
12.1
P / E (ttm)
8.9%
ROE
$3.3B
Market cap
3.0%
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.
Post Holdings, Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.7, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
5.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 5.0% in the latest fiscal year and steady — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+0.1%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed +0% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+0.1%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($709M) are about offsetting stock comp ($82M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
145% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $709M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 145% of free cash flow, but 71% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow because the business is also funding heavy growth capex (usually debt-financed); the payout itself is covered by operating cash — sustainable as long as that spending is genuine expansion, not upkeep. Counting the $82M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 162%.
-31%
FY2015→FY2016
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~31% in FY2016 (from FY2015) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$8.16B
Revenue Growth YoY+3.0%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+11.7%
Net Margin4.1%
Free Cash Flow$488.1M
Return on Equity8.9%
Debt / Equity1.99x
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 Post Holdings, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?