Forensic Analysis · Water Utilities · as of Nov 9, 2026
Essential Utilities, Inc. (WTRG)
A forensic read on Essential Utilities, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Clean
Earnings quality
3
Forensic signals
9.4%
ROE
18.6%
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.
Essential Utilities, Inc. earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade. 3 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
4.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.6% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.8-point range. After-tax operating profit was $623M in FY2023 and $829M in FY2025, with operating income at 33.7% of revenue in FY2023, 36.3% in FY2024 and 37.2% in FY2025. The capital base behind it grew +11% across FY2023–FY2025, from $16.1B to $17.9B, and the return did not fall doing it, so the dollars added over that window earned at least the 3.9% the older base was already earning.
+2.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +5% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+2.4%/yr). The count is growing — 267.7M shares in FY2023, 280.6M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~2.4% 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 ~5%.
0.5% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.5% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.05 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 2.4% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.47B
Revenue Growth YoY+18.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+9.8%
Net Margin24.9%
Return on Equity9.4%
Debt / Equity1.19x
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 Essential Utilities, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?