Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 11, 2026

Patterson Uti Energy Inc (PTEN)

A forensic read on Patterson Uti Energy 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

Forensic signals

-43.7

P / E (ttm)

-2.9%

ROE

$4.2B

Market cap

3.98%

Dividend yield

-10.3%

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.

Patterson Uti Energy 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

-0.8%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is -0.8% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 8% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

+20.4%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +75% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+20.4%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~20.4% 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 FY2022 has been diluted ~43%.

0.8% of rev

FY2025

Stock-based comp load. Stock-based compensation ran 0.8% of revenue and 11% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.10 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 22.0% a year and is falling.

$1.3B

FY2019–FY2024

Goodwill impairments. Took $1.3B of goodwill writedowns across 3 years (FY2019 ($18M), FY2020 ($395M), FY2024 ($885M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$4.83B

Revenue Growth YoY-10.3%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+22.2%

Net Margin-1.9%

Free Cash Flow$372.2M

Return on Equity-2.9%

Debt / Equity0.38x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.