Forensic Analysis · Industrials / Manufacturing / Defense · as of Aug 9, 2026
Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (SPB)
A forensic read on Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. 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
5.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
16.3
P / E (ttm)
5.2%
ROE
$1.9B
Market cap
2.13%
Dividend yield
-5.2%
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). 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.
Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 5.0, placing it in the Safe zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by cash conversion.
What the filings flag
-0.02×
FY2023–FY2025
Cash conversion.Over FY2023–FY2025, operating cash flow was -0.02× cumulative net income. Reported profit is not turning into cash. The shortfall is profit tied up in working capital rather than collected — the accrual and receivables lines below show where.
4.1%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.1% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 0% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
227% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $375M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 227% of free cash flow. More than free cash flow generated — and beyond operating cash too, so the extra is coming from debt or cash reserves, which isn't sustainable indefinitely. Counting the $20M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 239%.
75d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 69 to 75 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables -18% vs revenue -5%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Only -2¢ of operating cash arrived for every dollar of profit reported over FY2023–FY2025 (-$43.5M against $2.0B), and the receivables balance is one of the places the rest is sitting. Across FY2021–FY2025 the day count ran 33 → 29 → 45 → 69 → 75 days — the latest step continues a climb that was already under way, which is the persistence that separates a collection problem from a busy quarter.
$227M
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.81B
Revenue Growth YoY-5.2%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-3.6%
Net Margin3.6%
Free Cash Flow$165.3M
Return on Equity5.2%
Debt / Equity0.30x
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 Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 9, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
FY2019–FY2023
Goodwill impairments.Took $227M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2019 ($116M), FY2023 ($111M)) — about 9% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
-81%
FY2016→FY2017
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~81% in FY2017 (from FY2016) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies. Measured on total dividend dollars rather than per share: the reported share count steps sharply around FY2016, a stock-split seam between filing vintages rather than a change in the payout, and a split leaves the dollars paid untouched.
Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (SPB) Stock — Forensic Analysis, Red Flags & Rating | Stockonomy · Stockonomy