Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Sep 24, 2026
Sylvamo Corp (SLVM)
A forensic read on Sylvamo Corp 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
Safe
Financial health
5.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
18.6
P / E (ttm)
13.7%
ROE
$1.5B
Market cap
2.50%
Dividend yield
-11.2%
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.
Sylvamo Corp earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.3, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+11.2%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +11.2% 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 inventory up +16% against -11% in revenue. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 9% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 11.2%. 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.
8.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 8.6% in the latest fiscal year, against 15% in FY2021, having run between 8.6% and 24.1% across FY2021–FY2025 with no direction held — within 0.1 points of the ~8% cost of capital we hold this sector to, so the capital deployed to date has been roughly value-neutral. The capital base behind it grew +14% across FY2021–FY2025, from $1.7B to $1.9B, while the return fell 6.1 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the 15% the older base was already earning.
352% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $155M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 352% 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 $18M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 393%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.35B
Revenue Growth YoY-11.2%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-2.6%
Net Margin3.9%
Free Cash Flow$44.0M
Return on Equity13.7%
Debt / Equity0.81x
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 Sylvamo Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?