Forensic Analysis · Energy / Oil & Gas · as of Aug 12, 2026
Vitesse Energy, Inc. (VTS)
A forensic read on Vitesse Energy, Inc. 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
Safe
Financial health
2.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-50.6
P / E (ttm)
4.0%
ROE
$691M
Market cap
11.48%
Dividend yield
13.2%
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.
Vitesse Energy, Inc. earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 2.9, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+22.7%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +22.7% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by payables paid down 66% against +13% in revenue. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 26% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
1.5%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 1.5% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 22% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
4% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 4% of revenue and 6% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.26 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count: holders gave up about 15.8% of the company a year, and that rate is not falling. That is the figure to weigh, not the share of free cash flow.
n/m (stock split)
FY2022–FY2025
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed -91% over the last 3 years to FY2025, but that includes a large one-time change around FY2023 consistent with a stock split or reverse split, not gradual buybacks or issuance — a split changes the count with NO effect on any holder's proportional ownership, so the raw -55.2%/yr figure isn't a real buyback/dilution read here.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$274.0M
Revenue Growth YoY+13.2%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)-0.9%
Net Margin9.2%
Free Cash Flow$170.3M
Return on Equity4.0%
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 Vitesse Energy, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?