Forensic Analysis · Materials / Mining & Chemicals · as of Aug 12, 2026
Valhi Inc /De/ (VHI)
A forensic read on Valhi Inc /De/ built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
3.1
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-8.5
P / E (ttm)
-5.6%
ROE
$463M
Market cap
2.34%
Dividend yield
-1.3%
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). 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.
Valhi Inc /De/ earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 3.1, 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
2.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 2.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 10% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
FCF ($82M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $9M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($82M) 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.
+11.3%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +11.3% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran in line with operating cash by 2% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
+0.0%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share count.Diluted share count changed +0% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+0.0%/yr). Roughly flat — the count is neither shrinking nor growing meaningfully. Per-share value isn't being meaningfully helped or hurt by the count.
-50%
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.08B
Revenue Growth YoY-1.3%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-2.2%
Net Margin-2.8%
Free Cash Flow-$82.1M
Return on Equity-5.6%
Debt / Equity0.58x
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 Valhi Inc /De/'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 12, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.
FY2019→FY2020
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~50% in FY2020 (from FY2019) and hasn't been restored since. It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.