Forensic Analysis · Television Broadcasting · as of Nov 8, 2026
Sinclair, Inc. (SBGI)
A forensic read on Sinclair, 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
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-21.8%
ROE
-10.7%
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 (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.
Sinclair, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.3, 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
3.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 3.0% in the latest fiscal year, against -6.0% in FY2023, having run between -6.0% and 9.9% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($261M) in FY2023 and $137M in FY2025, with operating income at -10.6% of revenue in FY2023, 15.5% in FY2024 and 5.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $4.4B in FY2023 to $4.5B in FY2025 (+4%), while the revenue it carried went from $3.1B to $3.2B.
79d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 66 to 79 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +8% vs revenue -11%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 72 → 66 → 79 days, so the latest reading sits on top of a record that was flat or falling before it — one year's move, not a direction the business has been travelling in. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (-12%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. Both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, because averaging needs the balance a year before every reading — FY2024's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2023–FY2025) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.DSO (days sales outstanding): the average days the company waits to collect cash after a sale.
+3.0%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +6% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+3.0%/yr). The count is growing — 65.1M shares in FY2023, 69.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~3.0% 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 ~6%.
1.6% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 1.6% of revenue and 44% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.74 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 3.0% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.17B
Revenue Growth YoY-10.7%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+0.6%
Net Margin-3.5%
Free Cash Flow$115.0M
Return on Equity-21.8%
Debt / Equity9.89x
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 Sinclair, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?