Forensic Analysis · Restaurants · as of Nov 10, 2026
Starbucks Corp (SBUX)
A forensic read on Starbucks Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Clean
Earnings quality
2
Forensic signals
2.8%
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 (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.
Starbucks Corp earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
10.8%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 10.8% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 24.4%. After-tax operating profit was $4.5B in FY2023 and $2.2B in FY2025, with operating income at 16.3% of revenue in FY2023, 15.0% in FY2024 and 7.9% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $18.4B in FY2023 to $20.2B in FY2025 (+10%), while the revenue it carried went from $36.0B to $37.2B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $5.3B went into capital expenditure and acquisitions against $3.3B of depreciation excluding $38M of intangible-asset amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference.
113% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $2.8B to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 113% of free cash flow, but 58% of operating cash flow. Returns run ahead of free cash flow, with the gap funded by debt or cash reserves rather than the cash the business itself throws off; the payout itself is still covered by operating cash. Counting the $318M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 127%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$37.18B
Revenue Growth YoY+2.8%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+1.7%
Net Margin5.0%
Free Cash Flow$2.44B
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