SW · Materials(paperboard containers & boxes) · 5 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
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Smurfit Westrock plc reported revenue of $31.2 billion in fiscal 2025. Of the $7.9 billion its operations generated over 5 years, 70.1% went back into the business and 29.1% to dividends. On the accounting screens, it passes 7 of 9 Piotroski tests, its Altman Z'' of 1.66 is in the grey zone and its Beneish M-score is below the -1.78 line; none of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.
Revenue, fiscal 202531.2B
Operating margin5.5%gross margin 19.4%
Return on invested capital3.9%7.2% on average over 3 years
Free cash flow after stock pay1.1B3.4% of revenue
Net debt ÷ EBITDA3.0×net debt 12.7B
Piotroski F-score7/9tests of improvement passed
Share counts are in today's shares. The SEC's filings restate only recent years after a split, so these jumps were read as splits and the older years scaled to match — otherwise per-share figures would compare different units:
2-for-1 before fiscal 2024.
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
010.0B20.0B30.0B40.0B
2021
2022Revenue 13.5BOperating income 1.6B
2023Revenue 12.1BOperating income 1.4B
2024Revenue 21.1BOperating income 1.0B
2025Revenue 31.2BOperating income 1.7B
20212022202320242025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
4 yrs
Revenue
+32.2%
—
Operating income
+3.3%
—
Net income
-12.2%
—
Earnings per share
-30.5%
—
Free cash flow per share
+5.8%
—
Dividend per share
+8.6%
—
Shares
+26.3%
—
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
3.8%
Return on assets
1.5%
Asset turnover
0.69×
Overheads (SG&A)
12.2% 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
-500.0M0500.0M1.0B1.5B
2021
2022Net income 1.0BFree cash flow 503.0MAfter stock-based pay 435.0M
2023Net income 825.0MFree cash flow 630.0MAfter stock-based pay 564.0M
2024Net income 319.0MFree cash flow 17.0MAfter stock-based pay -189.0M
2025Net income 699.0MFree cash flow 1.2BAfter stock-based pay 1.1B
20212022202320242025
Where 5 years of operating cash went, 2021–2025
7.9B generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 70%5.5B
Acquisitions 11%847.0M
Dividends 29%2.3B
Share buybacks 1%89.0M
More than it generated: funded with cash or new debt -11%-876.0M
Over the same years it paid 479.0M 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
$0.00$1.00$2.00$3.00$4.00
2021
2022Earnings per share $3.96Free cash flow per share $1.93Dividend per share $1.34
2023Earnings per share $3.17Free cash flow per share $2.42Dividend per share $1.50
2024Earnings per share $0.82Free cash flow per share $0.04Dividend per share $1.67
2025Earnings per share $1.33Free cash flow per share $2.28Dividend per share $1.71
20212022202320242025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
200.0M300.0M400.0M500.0M600.0M
2021
2022Diluted shares 261.0M
2023Diluted shares 260.0M
2024Diluted shares 389.0M
2025Diluted shares 526.0M
20212022202320242025
How strong is the balance sheet?
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
-5.0B05.0B10.0B15.0B
2021
2022
2023Net debt -922.0M
2024Net debt 13.3B
2025Net debt 12.7B
20212022202320242025
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
3.0×
Interest coverage
2× operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
1.48 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
51 days collects in 50d, stock 54d, pays in 52d
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.
7of 9 tests passed
✓ProfitableReturn on assets above zeropassed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
✓Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year beforepassed
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
✓Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fellpassed
✓More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year beforepassed
✕No new sharesShare count did not growfailed
✕Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year beforefailed
✓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?
1.66grey zone
1.12.6
Working capital ÷ assets 0.07 × 6.56+0.49
Retained earnings ÷ assets 0.06 × 3.26+0.19
Operating income ÷ assets 0.04 × 6.72+0.26
Equity ÷ liabilities 0.68 × 1.05+0.72
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?
-2.57below the -1.78 line
-1.78
Receivables vs sales 0.70+0.65
Gross margin slipping 1.03+0.54
Soft assets 1.00 (not reported, set to 1)+0.40
Sales growth 1.48+1.32
Slower depreciation 1.00 (not reported, set to 1)+0.12
Overheads vs sales 0.94-0.16
Profit not in cash -0.06-0.28
Leverage rising 0.96-0.32
Where it misleads: fast growth and acquisitions. Sales growth carries a heavy weight, so a company growing 50% a year scores like a suspect without having done anything. It is a screen from a 1999 study, not an accusation.
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.
None of the six cross-checks fires for the latest year: receivables and inventory move with revenue, profit turns into cash, investment keeps up with depreciation, the tax rate is ordinary and debt is moderate.
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 6 people. Open-market purchases and sales are counted apart from awards, option exercises and shares withheld for taxes.
Bought on the open market—none in the period
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.
Which large funds report holding it
From the Form 13F of the 28 institutions followed on this site, as of the end of their last reported quarter. A 13F is filed up to 45 days later and shows only long positions in US-listed shares.
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.
