CLNE · Utilities(gas & other services combined) · 10 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
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Clean Energy Fuels Corp. reported revenue of $424.8 million in fiscal 2025. Of the $413.2 million its operations generated over 10 years, 78.6% went back into the business and 7.7% to buybacks. On the accounting screens, it passes 4 of 8 Piotroski tests and its Altman Z'' of -2.39 is in the distress zone; 2 of the six cross-checks between its statements fire.
Revenue, fiscal 2025424.8M
Operating margin-37.6%gross margin —
Return on invested capital-20.6%-10.1% on average over 5 years
Free cash flow after stock pay51.0M12.0% of revenue
Net debt ÷ EBITDA-1.2×net debt 71.2M
Piotroski F-score4/8tests of improvement passed
Is it growing?
Revenue and the operating income it turns into. Growth that does not reach operating income is growth bought with margin.
RevenueOperating income
-200M0200M400M600M
2018
2018
2018Revenue 346.4MOperating income 3.9M
2019Revenue 344.1MOperating income 9.9M
2020Revenue 291.7MOperating income -9.8M
2021Revenue 255.6MOperating income -95.0M
2022Revenue 420.2MOperating income -51.7M
2023Revenue 425.2MOperating income -76.4M
2024Revenue 415.9MOperating income -36.4M
2025Revenue 424.8MOperating income -159.9M
2018201820182019202020212022202320242025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
9 yrs
Revenue
+0.4%
+7.8%
—
Free cash flow per share
+39.5%
+2.6%
—
Shares
-0.3%
+1.9%
—
Falling shares are buybacks: each remaining share owns more of the company.
Does it earn more than its capital costs?
Margins say how much of each sale is kept; return on invested capital says how much the business earns on the money it needs to operate. Growth only creates value when that return is above the cost of the capital.
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
-39.7%
Return on assets
-21.0%
Asset turnover
0.40×
Overheads (SG&A)
26.3% of revenue
Is the profit cash, and where does the cash go?
Net income is an accounting opinion; free cash flow is what was left in the bank after investing. Stock-based pay does not leave the bank — shareholders pay it through dilution — so it is shown taken off as well.
Net incomeFree cash flowAfter stock-based pay
-300M-200M-100M0100M
2018
2018
2018Net income -3.8MFree cash flow 12.7MAfter stock-based pay 7.4M
2019Net income 20.4MFree cash flow -14.8MAfter stock-based pay -18.7M
2020Net income -9.9MFree cash flow 47.8MAfter stock-based pay 44.8M
2021Net income -93.1MFree cash flow 18.2MAfter stock-based pay 3.2M
2022Net income -58.7MFree cash flow 22.2MAfter stock-based pay -4.3M
2023Net income -99.5MFree cash flow -57.2MAfter stock-based pay -80.5M
2024Net income -83.1MFree cash flow -418,000After stock-based pay -11.2M
2025Net income -222.0MFree cash flow 59.9MAfter stock-based pay 51.0M
2018201820182019202020212022202320242025
Where 10 years of operating cash went, 2018–2025
413.2M generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 79%324.8M
Acquisitions 0%0
Dividends 0%0
Share buybacks 8%31.6M
Kept, or used to pay down debt 14%56.8M
Over the same years it paid 96.6M in stock. The buybacks did not even cover what was handed out in stock.
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
-$1.50-$1.00-$0.50$0.00$0.50
2018
2018
2018Earnings per share $-0.02Free cash flow per share $0.07
2019Earnings per share $0.10Free cash flow per share $-0.07
2020Earnings per share $-0.05Free cash flow per share $0.24
2021Earnings per share $-0.44Free cash flow per share $0.09
2022Earnings per share $-0.26Free cash flow per share $0.10
2023Earnings per share $-0.45Free cash flow per share $-0.26
2024Earnings per share $-0.37Free cash flow per share $-0.00
2025Earnings per share $-1.01Free cash flow per share $0.27
2018201820182019202020212022202320242025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
180M200M220M240M
2018
2018
2018Diluted shares 180.7M
2019Diluted shares 206.0M
2020Diluted shares 200.7M
2021Diluted shares 213.1M
2022Diluted shares 222.4M
2023Diluted shares 222.9M
2024Diluted shares 223.3M
2025Diluted shares 220.6M
2018201820182019202020212022202320242025
Debt and liquidity
Debt is not bad in itself; debt the business cannot service in a bad year is. Net debt is debt minus cash, and below zero the company holds more cash than it owes.
Net debt
-100M0100M200M
2018
2018
2018Net debt 49.9M
2019Net debt 39.7M
2020Net debt -23.3M
2021Net debt -63.4M
2022Net debt 21.6M
2023Net debt 156.2M
2024Net debt 175.9M
2025Net debt 71.2M
2018201820182019202020212022202320242025
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
-1.2×
Interest coverage
-3× operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
2.32 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
— collects in 87d
Three classic screens of the accounts
Each asks a different question of the same statements — is it improving, does it look like a company heading for distress, do the accounts resemble ones that were manipulated. None is a verdict; each shows what moves it.
Piotroski F-score
Is the business improving? Nine yes-or-no tests, this year against last.
4of 8 tests passed
✕ProfitableReturn on assets above zerofailed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
✕Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year beforefailed
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
✕Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fellfailed
✕More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year beforefailed
✓No new sharesShare count did not growpassed
–Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year before — not reportedno data
✓Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year beforepassed
Where it misleads: it measures change, not level. An excellent business that stood still for a year scores low; a poor one recovering from a disaster scores high.
Altman Z''-score
Does the balance sheet look like those of companies that went bankrupt?
-2.39distress zone
1.12.6
Working capital ÷ assets 0.19 × 6.56+1.24
Retained earnings ÷ assets -1.17 × 3.26-3.81
Operating income ÷ assets -0.15 × 6.72-1.02
Equity ÷ liabilities 1.14 × 1.05+1.19
Where it misleads: buybacks. A company that returns so much cash that its equity turns small or negative sinks the last two ratios without being anywhere near bankruptcy. Banks and insurers do not fit the model at all.
Beneish M-score
Do the accounts resemble those of companies that manipulated their earnings?
The accounts lack too many of the lines it needs.
Where the statements disagree
Cross-checks between the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow for the latest year, each with the benign reading and the worrying one.
Capital spending (26M) is well below depreciation (99M).
Benign
Mature assets, or a business that has become less capital-intensive.
Worrying
Under-investing: today's profit is being held up by consuming tomorrow's capacity.
The effective tax rate is -1.3%.
Benign
A favourable geographic mix, or legitimate tax credits.
Worrying
Not sustainable; projecting it forward inflates the valuation.
What is it worth, under which assumptions?
A company is worth the cash it will generate, brought back to today. This model projects revenue with growth that fades over the years, applies a free cash flow margin, and discounts the result at the cost of capital. Every assumption says where it came from, and all of them can be changed.
With a free cash flow margin at or below zero in year ten, the business never generates cash for its owners and a DCF says nothing useful. Set a positive margin for year ten to see what it would take.
What it has filed lately
The last twelve months at the SEC, most important first: annual and quarterly reports, events, large holders and insiders.
Every Form 4 filed in the last twelve months, read line by line: 6 filings by 5 people. Open-market purchases and sales are counted apart from awards, option exercises and shares withheld for taxes.
Bought on the open market$109,0363 purchase(s) by 2 insider(s)
Sold on the open market—none in the period
Under pre-arranged plans—of the sales followed a 10b5-1 plan set months earlier
A Form 4 says what happened, when, how many shares and at what price. It does not say why: a sale can be diversification, a tax bill or a plan fixed months earlier, and an award is pay, not a purchase. Nothing here is a reason to buy or sell anything.
Companies like this one
Same SEC industry (gas & other services combined) first, then the rest of utilities.
Accounts from the company's own SEC filings; lines some companies do not report are shown as a dash rather than estimated. The risk-free rate is the 10-year US Treasury yield. A DCF is a way of making assumptions explicit, not a forecast: it states what the company would be worth if the assumptions held. The scores are screens that point where to look, not verdicts. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell.