Forensic Analysis · Combined Electric & Other Services · as of Nov 8, 2026
Unitil Corp (UTL)
A forensic read on Unitil Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
8.9%
ROE
8.3%
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.
Unitil Corp earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by shareholder returns.
What the filings flag
FCF ($54M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $30M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($54M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $131M — 23% of that. Capex and the payout together ran $84M 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 $27M over FY2025, while cash rose $9M — $18M of the $84M. The FY2025 cash-flow statement filed $32M of debt issued against $5M repaid; $74M from shares issued; net cash used in investing activities of $346M; net cash provided by financing activities of $224M.
4.7%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.7% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.1-point range. After-tax operating profit was $67M in FY2023 and $78M in FY2025, with operating income at 15.6% of revenue in FY2023, 18.3% in FY2024 and 18.9% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +18% across FY2023–FY2025, from $1.4B to $1.6B, while the return fell 0.1 points, so the dollars added over that window earned less than the 4.8% the older base was already earning.
+2.3%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+2.3%/yr). The count is growing — 16.1M shares in FY2023, 16.8M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~2.3% 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 ~4%.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$536.0M
Revenue Growth YoY+8.3%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-1.9%
Net Margin9.4%
Free Cash Flow-$53.8M
Return on Equity8.9%
Debt / Equity1.10x
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