Forensic Analysis · Communication Services / Telecom · as of Sep 26, 2026
Shenandoah Telecommunications Co/Va/ (SHEN)
A forensic read on Shenandoah Telecommunications Co/Va/ 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
1.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-14.3
P / E (ttm)
-3.7%
ROE
$645M
Market cap
0.38%
Dividend yield
9.1%
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, going concern, valuation). 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.
Shenandoah Telecommunications Co/Va/ earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.8, placing it in the Grey zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-1.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -1.0% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 1.4-point range. After-tax operating profit was $95,103 in FY2023 and ($18M) in FY2025, with operating income at 0.1% of revenue in FY2023, -8.7% in FY2024 and -6.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +80% across FY2023–FY2025, from $984M to $1.8B, while the return fell 1.0 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the 0.0% the older base was already earning. FY2023's operating profit carried a $3M restructuring charge and a $3M asset write-down that alone took about 0.4 points off that year's return, so the FY2025 return is being compared with a base year that charge had already pulled down. FY2024's operating profit carried a $15M restructuring charge and a $382,000 asset write-down that alone took about 0.7 points off that year's return; FY2024 sits between the two ends of FY2023–FY2025, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it.
FCF ($258M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $6M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($258M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $101M — 6% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
+13.9%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +13.9% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by PP&E up +11% against revenue +9%. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 10% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 13.9%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$357.9M
Revenue Growth YoY+9.1%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+15.3%
Net Margin-9.2%
Free Cash Flow-$257.9M
Return on Equity-3.7%
Debt / Equity0.71x
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 Shenandoah Telecommunications Co/Va/'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +9% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+4.2%/yr). The count is growing — 50.7M shares in FY2023, 55.1M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~4.2% 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 FY2023 has been diluted ~8%.
3% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 3% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.17 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 4.2% a year across FY2023–FY2025, and the rate is falling. 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.