Forensic Analysis · Communication Services / Telecom · as of Aug 10, 2026
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD)
A forensic read on Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. 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
Distress
Financial health
0.8
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
5
Forensic signals
-21.0
P / E (ttm)
2.0%
ROE
$67.1B
Market cap
0.00%
Dividend yield
-5.1%
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.
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 0.8, placing it in the Distress zone. 5 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
0.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 0.6% in the latest fiscal year and rising from -5% — well below its ~8% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
+9.3%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +30% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+9.3%/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 ~9.3% 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 FY2022 has been diluted ~23%.
stopped
FY2020→FY2022
Shareholder returns — halted.Capital returns have STOPPED — $969M of buybacks + dividends in FY2020, but ~$0 in FY2022. A halt usually means the company is conserving cash.
2% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 2% of revenue and 25% of free cash flow in FY2025 — about $0.30 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 9.8% a year and is falling.
$9.4B
FY2019–FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $9.4B of goodwill writedowns across 3 years (FY2019 ($155M), FY2020 ($121M), FY2024 ($9.1B)). Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$37.30B
Revenue Growth YoY-5.1%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+3.3%
Net Margin1.9%
Free Cash Flow$3.09B
Return on Equity2.0%
Debt / Equity0.91x
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 Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?