Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 11, 2026

Shake Shack Inc. (SHAK)

A forensic read on Shake Shack 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

Safe

Financial health

3.4

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

73.0

P / E (ttm)

8.7%

ROE

$3.0B

Market cap

15.4%

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.

Shake Shack Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.4, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

3.3%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 3.3% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -2% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

+2.2%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +7% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+2.2%/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 ~2.2% 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 ~6%.

stopped

FY2015→FY2019

Shareholder returns — halted. Capital returns have STOPPED — $11M of buybacks + dividends in FY2015, but ~$0 in FY2019. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.

1.3% of rev

FY2025

Stock-based comp load. Stock-based compensation ran 1.3% of revenue and 35% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.47 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 2.4% a year and is falling.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$1.45B

Revenue Growth YoY+15.4%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)+17.0%

Net Margin3.2%

Free Cash Flow$56.5M

Return on Equity8.7%

Debt / Equity0.47x

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