SYF · Financials(finance services) · 10 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
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Of the $83.0 billion its operations generated over 10 years, 23.7% went to buybacks and 5.4% to dividends; the share count fell 55.0%. On the accounting screens, it passes 6 of 6 Piotroski tests; none of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.
Revenue, fiscal 2025—
Operating margin—gross margin —
Return on invested capital55.5%32.0% on average over 5 years
Free cash flow—
Net debt ÷ EBITDA0.0×net debt 209.0M
Piotroski F-score6/6tests 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
010B20B30B
2016Operating income 4.8B
2017Operating income 4.7B
2018Operating income 5.5B
2019Operating income 7.2B
2020Operating income 3.5B
2021Operating income 6.5B
2022Operating income 5.5B
2023Operating income 6.6B
2024Operating income 22.6B
2025Operating income 23.1B
2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
9 yrs
Operating income
+61.5%
+46.2%
+19.0%
Net income
+5.6%
+20.7%
+5.2%
Earnings per share
+15.0%
+32.3%
+15.0%
Dividend per share
+8.4%
+5.3%
+18.0%
Shares
-8.2%
-8.7%
-8.5%
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.
Return on invested capital
Return on invested capital
0%20%40%60%
2016Return on invested capital 8.8%
2017Return on invested capital 7.8%
2018Return on invested capital 10.9%
2019Return on invested capital 15.7%
2020Return on invested capital 9.4%
2021Return on invested capital 17.8%
2022Return on invested capital 15.4%
2023Return on invested capital 17.1%
2024Return on invested capital 54.1%
2025Return on invested capital 55.5%
2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Economic profit
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
21.2%
Return on assets
3.0%
Asset turnover
—
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
02B4B6B
2016Net income 2.3B
2017Net income 1.9B
2018Net income 2.8B
2019Net income 3.7B
2020Net income 1.4B
2021Net income 4.2B
2022Net income 3.0B
2023Net income 2.2B
2024Net income 3.5B
2025Net income 3.6B
2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Where 10 years of operating cash went, 2016–2025
83.0B generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 0%0
Acquisitions 3%2.1B
Dividends 5%4.5B
Share buybacks 24%19.7B
Kept, or used to pay down debt 68%56.7B
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
$0.0$2.5$5.0$7.5$10.0
2016Earnings per share $2.71Dividend per share $0.26
2017Earnings per share $2.42Dividend per share $0.56
2018Earnings per share $3.74Dividend per share $0.71
2019Earnings per share $5.56Dividend per share $0.86
2020Earnings per share $2.34Dividend per share $0.88
2021Earnings per share $7.41Dividend per share $0.88
2022Earnings per share $6.24Dividend per share $0.90
2023Earnings per share $5.28Dividend per share $0.96
2024Earnings per share $8.73Dividend per share $0.99
2025Earnings per share $9.50Dividend per share $1.14
2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
0.2B0.4B0.6B0.8B1.0B
2016Diluted shares 831.5M
2017Diluted shares 799.7M
2018Diluted shares 746.9M
2019Diluted shares 673.5M
2020Diluted shares 590.8M
2021Diluted shares 569.3M
2022Diluted shares 483.4M
2023Diluted shares 423.5M
2024Diluted shares 400.6M
2025Diluted shares 373.9M
2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
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
05B10B15B
2016Net debt 10.8B
2017Net debt 9.2B
2018Net debt 14.6B
2019Net debt 7.7B
2020Net debt 4.3B
2021Net debt 6.2B
2022Net debt 3.9B
2023Net debt 1.7B
2024Net debt 751.0M
2025Net debt 209.0M
2016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
0.0×
Interest coverage
1× operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
— current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
—
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.
6of 6 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 before — not reportedno data
✓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 before — not reportedno data
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?
The accounts lack a line it needs (retained earnings, current assets or liabilities).
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.
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.
The SEC accounts lack the lines needed for revenue, free cash flow or the share count, so there is no DCF for this company.
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.
