Forensic Analysis · Healthcare / Pharmaceuticals / Biotech · as of Sep 25, 2026
Twist Bioscience Corp (TWST)
A forensic read on Twist Bioscience Corp 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
6.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-75.2
P / E (ttm)
-16.4%
ROE
$10.5B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
20.3%
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 (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.
Twist Bioscience Corp earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 6.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
-29.3%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -29.3% in the latest fiscal year, against -41.2% in FY2023, having run between -55.0% and -29.3% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($172M) in FY2023 and ($108M) in FY2025, with operating income at -88.6% of revenue in FY2023, -70.6% in FY2024 and -36.2% in FY2025. The capital base behind it came down -12% across FY2023–FY2025, from $417M to $367M, so this is a return struck on a smaller base rather than a record of money put to work. FY2024's operating profit carried a $45M asset write-down that alone took about 11.2 points off that year's return; FY2024 sits between the two ends of FY2023–FY2025, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it.
+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: 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%.
17% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 17% of revenue in FY2025 — about $1.08 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 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.
+16.2%
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$376.6M
Revenue Growth YoY+20.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+23.9%
Net Margin-20.6%
Free Cash Flow-$75.6M
Return on Equity-16.4%
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 Twist Bioscience Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Sep 25, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +16.2% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not by total assets, which is what the Forensic Screens card's own accrual row divides by. Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by receivables up +63% against revenue +20% and inventory up +18% against +3% in cost of sales. A cash-flow measure on the same base disagrees: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 11% of net operating assets, against an accruals ratio of 16.2%. The two are computed differently: the accruals ratio is the change in net operating assets over average net operating assets, while the cash-flow figure is net income less operating cash flow over that same average. Read them as two results, not one.
55d DSO
FY2024→FY2025
Receivables vs revenue.Days sales outstanding moved from 41 to 55 days FY2024→FY2025 (receivables +63% vs revenue +20%). Receivables are creeping up relative to sales. Across FY2023–FY2025 the day count ran 66 → 41 → 55 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. 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 6 consecutive quarters (Mar 2025 +5, Jun 2025 +11, Sep 2025 +15, Dec 2025 +4, Mar 2026 +4, Jun 2026 +3 days). In the latest of them the receivable balance grew +30% against sales +23%, 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 — 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.