Forensic Analysis · Gas Distribution Utility · as of Nov 9, 2026
Spire Inc (SR)
A forensic read on Spire 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
Distress
Financial health
0.1
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
8.2%
ROE
-4.5%
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.
Spire Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.1, placing it in the Distress zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
4.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.6% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.5-point range. After-tax operating profit was $355M in FY2023 and $430M in FY2025, with operating income at 15.7% of revenue in FY2023, 18.8% in FY2024 and 21.2% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $8.7B in FY2023 to $9.4B in FY2025 (+7%), while the revenue it carried went from $2.7B to $2.5B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $2.0B went into capital expenditure and acquisitions against $577M of total depreciation and amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference.
+5.6%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +12% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+5.6%/yr). The count is growing — 52.6M 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 ~5.6% 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 ~10%.
FCF ($344M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $182M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($344M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $578M — 32% of that. Capex and the payout together ran $527M past operating cash flow — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of. New debt covered part of it: total debt rose $110M over FY2025, while cash rose $1M — $109M of the $527M. The FY2025 cash-flow statement filed $150M of debt issued against $42M repaid; $76M from shares issued; net cash used in investing activities of $916M; net cash provided by financing activities of $345M.
0.3% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.3% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.11 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 5.6% 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.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.48B
Revenue Growth YoY-4.5%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-3.6%
Net Margin11.0%
Free Cash Flow-$344.4M
Return on Equity8.2%
Debt / Equity1.14x
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 Spire Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?