Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 11, 2026

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co (SMG)

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.

C · Mixed — selective

Forensic grade

Safe

Financial health

2.9

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

33.5

P / E (ttm)

$3.6B

Market cap

4.25%

Dividend yield

-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 (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.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.

What the filings flag

+1.9%/yr

FY2022–FY2025

Share-count dilution. Diluted share count changed +6% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+1.9%/yr). A change of direction: the count shrank over the full period (net -0.9%/yr since FY2011) but has grown across the recent window, so the two figures point opposite ways — read the recent window on totals versus per-share, since the full-period rate no longer describes what the count is doing now. That's ~1.9% 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 ~5%.

11.6%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 11.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -10% — a modest positive spread over its ~8% cost of capital — growth adds value, though not dramatically.

$533M

FY2022–FY2023

Goodwill impairments. Took $533M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2022 ($522M), FY2023 ($10M)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.

-65%

FY2020→FY2021

Dividend — cut. The payout was CUT ~65% in FY2021 (from FY2020) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$3.41B

Revenue Growth YoY-3.9%

Net Margin4.3%

Free Cash Flow$273.9M

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