Forensic Analysis · Transportation / Logistics · as of Aug 11, 2026

Werner Enterprises Inc (WERN)

A forensic read on Werner Enterprises 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

Safe

Financial health

4.4

Distress distance

Clean

Earnings quality

Forensic signals

-48.6

P / E (ttm)

-1.1%

ROE

$2.2B

Market cap

1.22%

Dividend yield

-1.8%

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.

Werner Enterprises Inc earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 4.4, placing it in the Safe zone. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.

What the filings flag

0.4%

FY2025

Return on invested capital. Return on invested capital is 0.4% in the latest fiscal year and slipping from 9% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.

FCF ($69M)

FY2025

Shareholder returns. Returned $90M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($69M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $182M — 49% of that. 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.

-91%

FY2019→FY2020

Dividend — cut. The payout was CUT ~91% 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.

Key fundamentals

Latest Revenue$2.97B

Revenue Growth YoY-1.8%

Revenue CAGR (3yr)-3.3%

Net Margin-0.5%

Free Cash Flow-$68.5M

Return on Equity-1.1%

Debt / Equity0.55x

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Data from SEC EDGAR public filings · metrics as of Aug 11, 2026. Forensic signals flag probability, not certainty.