A forensic read on Scotts Miracle-Gro Co 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
4
Forensic signals
-3.9%
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.
Scotts Miracle-Gro Co earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
11.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 11.4% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -5.2%. After-tax operating profit was ($138M) in FY2023 and $235M in FY2025, with operating income at -4.9% of revenue in FY2023, 5.9% in FY2024 and 10.5% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -22% across FY2023–FY2025, from $2.7B to $2.1B, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on.
+2.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+2.4%/yr). The count is growing — 56.0M shares in FY2023, 58.7M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~2.4% 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 ~5%.
2% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 2% of revenue and 25% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $1.18 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 2.4% 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.
$10M
FY2023
Goodwill impairments.Took $10M of goodwill writedowns across 1 year (FY2023 ($10M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$3.41B
Revenue Growth YoY-3.9%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-2.0%
Net Margin4.3%
Free Cash Flow$273.9M
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 Scotts Miracle-Gro Co's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?