Forensic Analysis · Wireline & Integrated Carriers · as of Nov 10, 2026
Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/ (TDS)
A forensic read on Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/ 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
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
-0.1%
ROE
-5.3%
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.
Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/ earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-0.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -0.9% in the latest fiscal year and rising across FY2023–FY2025 from -4.3%. After-tax operating profit was ($539M) in FY2023 and ($88M) in FY2025, with operating income at -50.4% of revenue in FY2023, -14.7% in FY2024 and -7.9% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -22% across FY2023–FY2025, from $12.5B to $9.7B, so this return is struck on a smaller base than it started on.
20d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 16 to 20 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +20% vs revenue -5%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 267 → 16 → 20 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 (-18%) over the same period, which doesn't corroborate a benign upfront-billing explanation for the receivables build. 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 — FY2024's opening balance is on file, but across the 3 fiscal years read here (FY2023–FY2025) 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.
+2.5%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+2.5%/yr). The count is growing — 112.8M shares in FY2023, 118.6M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~2.5% 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 ~5%.
2% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 2% of revenue and 14% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.23 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 2.5% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. 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.
98% of FCF
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $196M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025 — 98% 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 — 32% of free cash flow two years back — not just sitting there. Counting the $27M of stock-based comp paid out in shares on top of that, the combined claim on free cash flow is 112%.
-32%
FY2023→FY2024
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~32% in FY2024 (from FY2023). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.23B
Revenue Growth YoY-5.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-4.8%
Net Margin-0.5%
Free Cash Flow$199.4M
Return on Equity-0.1%
Debt / Equity0.17x
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 Telephone & Data Systems Inc /De/'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?