A forensic read on Synaptics Inc 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
Grey Zone
Financial health
2.0
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
-42.2%
ROE
11.4%
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.
Synaptics Inc earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.0, placing it in the Grey zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-3.2%
FY2026
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -3.2% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2024–FY2026 from -4.8%. After-tax operating profit was ($80M) in FY2024 and ($53M) in FY2026, with operating income at -10.6% of revenue in FY2024, -8.8% in FY2025 and -5.6% in FY2026. The capital base behind it went from $1.7B in FY2024 to $1.7B in FY2026 (-1%), while the revenue it carried went from $959M to $1.2B. Across FY2025–FY2026, $285M went into capital expenditure, purchases of intangible assets and acquisitions against $60M of depreciation. 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. FY2024's operating profit carried a $16M asset write-down and a $10M restructuring charge that alone took about 1.2 points off that year's return, so about 1.2 of the 1.6-point rise across FY2024–FY2026 is that charge leaving the base year rather than the capital earning more. FY2025's operating profit carried a $17M restructuring charge and a $14M asset write-down that alone took about 1.3 points off that year's return; FY2025 sits between the two ends of FY2024–FY2026, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
50d DSO
FY2025→FY2026
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 44 to 50 days FY2025→FY2026 (receivables +26% vs revenue +11%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2024–FY2026 the day count ran 54 → 44 → 50 days, so the latest reading sits on top of a record that was flat or falling before it — one year's move, not a direction the business has been travelling in. Deferred revenue was roughly flat (-90%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. Measured against the same quarter twelve months earlier — like-for-like on the calendar, so an ordinary seasonal build cannot produce it — receivables took longer to collect in 3 consecutive quarters (Mar 2026 +5, Jun 2026 +7, Sep 2026 +21 days). In the latest of them the receivable balance grew +58% against sales +1%, so more of a quarter's billings were still outstanding at the period end than a year earlier — money the company has recognized and not yet been paid. Both figures are measured on period-end balances rather than the beginning-plus-ending average, because averaging needs the balance a year before every reading — FY2025's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2024–FY2026) the average yields only 2 day counts (1 step), too few to tell a climb from one year's move.DSO (days sales outstanding): the average days the company waits to collect cash after a sale.
91% of FCF
FY2026
Shareholder returns.Returned $93M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2026 — 91% of free cash flow. Right at the limit of what free cash flow covers — little room before it's funded by debt or the balance sheet. That ratio has been CLIMBING toward the limit — 0% of free cash flow two years back — not just sitting there. Counting the $149M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 239%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.20B
Revenue Growth YoY+11.4%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+11.7%
Net Margin-41.0%
Free Cash Flow$101.4M
Return on Equity-42.2%
Debt / Equity0.90x
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 Synaptics Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?