Forensic Analysis · General / Diversified · as of Sep 25, 2026
Staar Surgical Co (STAA)
A forensic read on Staar Surgical Co built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
10.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
271.9
P / E (ttm)
-23.4%
ROE
$993M
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-23.7%
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.
Staar Surgical Co earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 10.8, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-31.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -31.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 7.6%. After-tax operating profit was $18M in FY2023 and ($72M) in FY2025, with operating income at 8.7% of revenue in FY2023, -4.0% in FY2024 and -38.3% in FY2025. The capital base behind it barely moved across FY2023–FY2025 ($241M to $230M, -4%), so there has been little new capital for that return to be earned on. $30M of the $230M base at FY2025 is construction in progress (13.2%) — paid for, not yet in service, and so in the denominator of this return while it cannot be in the profit above it.
FCF ($40M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $6M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($40M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
+0.1%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed 0% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+0.1%/yr). Roughly flat — buybacks ($6M) are about offsetting stock comp ($31M), not shrinking the count. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$239.4M
Revenue Growth YoY-23.7%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-13.7%
Net Margin-33.6%
Free Cash Flow-$40.0M
Return on Equity-23.4%
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 Staar Surgical Co's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?