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Fortrea Holdings

FTRE on Nasdaq. Fortrea sells clinical trial management and consulting services to drug and medical device makers. Market value $2.0bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Health care stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

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Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
9.9%high

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $9.92 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
-5.4%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns -5 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 41 of 100. Price score: 33 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$20.78 a share, 143% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $8.55 to $23.51.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.1
0.2
0.1
0.2
20232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: $196 million in the past 12 months, $88 million in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
$2.8bn$2.7bn$2.7bn
Operating margin
1.1%-6.0%-32.0%
Debt to equity
0.930.831.87
Shares outstanding
0.09bn0.09bn0.10bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive3 of 3 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)4 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)No
  • Debt1.87× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsUnknown
  • Buying back its own sharesNo, 6% more shares since 2023

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $678 million last quarter, down 5% on a year ago.
  • A loss of $13 million, compared with a loss of $375 million a year ago.
  • It keeps 0 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, after losing 34 cents a year earlier.
  • 5% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Debt is $886 million more than cash, down from $1.1 billion a year ago.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$675m
December 2024Not reported
March 2025$651m
June 2025$710m
September 2025$701m
December 2025$661m
March 2026$637m
June 2026$678m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024-$28m
December 2024Not reported
March 2025-$563m
June 2025-$375m
September 2025-$16m
December 2025-$33m
March 2026-$24m
June 2026-$13m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
26 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
28 October 2026

Who owns it

4 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 4 last quarter. 333 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

7 investors own more than 5%; 1 of them is pushing for change.

  • BlackRock, Inc.
    Passive investor
    15.3%+2.5 pts
    Since 30 June 2025
  • at least 8.9%
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 30 June 2025
  • 5.0%
    Since 31 March 2026
  • Sessa Capital (Master), L.P.
    Passive investor
    at least 4.3%−0.9 pts
    (filed with 4 related holders)
    Since 31 December 2025
  • at least 4.1%−3.1 pts
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 30 September 2025
  • FMR LLC
    Passive investor
    at least 3.4%−2.4 pts
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 30 June 2025
  • Starboard Value
    Activist
    Wants board seats
    at least 3.0%−2.4 pts
    (filed with 13 related holders)
    Since 8 May 2025
  • BECK MACK & OLIVER LLC
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 31 March 2025
  • Morgan Stanley
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 30 June 2025
  • Pacer Advisors, Inc.
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 31 March 2025
  • BlackRock Portfolio Management LLC
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 30 June 2025
  • The Vanguard Group
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 13 March 2026

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 6 sold $5m.

  • Russell Carrie Elizabeth
    Interim CAO
    Sold
    Date
    9 September 2026
    Shares
    246
    Price
    $16.85
    Value
    $4,145
  • Morais Mark A.
    Chief Operating Officer
    Sold
    Date
    9 September 2026
    Shares
    3,149
    Price
    $16.85
    Value
    $53,061
  • Morais Mark A.
    Chief Operating Officer
    Sold
    Date
    19 August 2026
    Shares
    4,892
    Price
    $18.19
    Value
    $88,985
  • Thakral Anshul
    Chief Executive Officer, Director
    Sold
    Date
    6 August 2026
    Shares
    111,857
    Price
    $18.11
    Value
    $2m
  • Thakral Anshul
    Chief Executive Officer, Director
    Sold
    Date
    5 August 2026
    Shares
    99,869
    Price
    $19.16
    Value
    $2m
  • SANDERS MACHELLE
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    3 August 2026
    Shares
    9,700
    Price
    $18.01
    Value
    $174,697
  • Morais Mark A.
    Chief Operating Officer
    Sold
    Date
    10 June 2026
    Shares
    4,674
    Price
    $16.82
    Value
    $78,617
  • Morais Mark A.
    Chief Operating Officer
    Sold
    Date
    2 June 2026
    Shares
    4,866
    Price
    $15.49
    Value
    $75,374
  • Mcconnell Jill G.
    Chief Financial Officer
    Sold
    Date
    2 June 2026
    Shares
    4,866
    Price
    $15.49
    Value
    $75,374
  • Parks Robert
    Chief Accounting Officer
    Sold
    Date
    18 May 2026
    Shares
    2,000
    Price
    $13.44
    Value
    $26,880

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 26 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 29 Jul 2026 and 7 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.