Syntec Optics Holdings
OPTX on Nasdaq. Syntec Optics makes optics and photonics products for original equipment manufacturers. Market value $395m.
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?
Look carefully before going further
Why it could be worth it
Read the warning sign in its own filings
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-0.10 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
Each dollar kept in the business earns -3 cents a year. Above 10 is good.
Quality score: 36 of 100. Price score: 0 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$9.80 a share, 731% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $1.18 to $14.92.
Pays no dividend
Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: a shortfall of $407,994 in the past 12 months, $28,343 in the year to December 2025.
| Revenue | ||||
| Revenue | $28m | $29m | $28m | $28m |
| Operating margin | ||||
| Operating margin | -1.9% | 5.2% | -9.1% | -1.8% |
| Debt to equity | ||||
| Debt to equity | 0.37 | 0.18 | 0.47 | 0.46 |
| Shares outstanding | ||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.03bn | 0.04bn | 0.04bn | 0.04bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive3 of 4 years
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
- Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 9
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt0.46× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 0.3% a year
- Buying back its own sharesNo, 27% more shares since 2022
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $8 million last quarter, up 26% on a year ago.
- Profit: $256,237, after a loss of $343,921 a year ago.
- It loses 5 cents on each $1 of sales, compared with 3 cents a year earlier.
- Over the past 12 months it spent $407,994 more cash than it brought in, compared with $407,577 a year earlier.
- 6% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
- It has $10 million more cash than debt. A year ago debt was $5 million more than cash.
- Sales grew on a year ago in 3 of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $0 |
| December 2024 | $7m |
| March 2025 | $7m |
| June 2025 | $7m |
| September 2025 | $7m |
| December 2025 | $8m |
| March 2026 | $7m |
| June 2026 | $8m |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | -$13,289 |
| December 2024 | -$2m |
| March 2025 | $323,665 |
| June 2025 | -$343,921 |
| September 2025 | -$1m |
| December 2025 | -$343,838 |
| March 2026 | -$897,857 |
| June 2026 | $256,237 |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 31 March 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 9 November 2026
Who owns it
None of the long-term investors we follow own it. 59 funds in all.
Largest holders overall
- Tema ETFs$8mNew
- Tidal Investments$8mNew
- BlackRock$5mAdded
- Geode Capital Management$3mAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$1mAdded
- Royal Bank of Canada$1mAdded
- State Street$1mAdded
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$954,604New
- DNB Asset Management AS$864,677Cut
- Northern Trust$743,751Added
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
1 investor owns more than 5%.
- Al KapoorInsider or founder73.6%Since 18 September 2026
What they said
Item 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and restated as follows: This transaction involved the Reporting Person's gift of shares of Syntec Optics Holdings, Inc. Class A Common Stock to irrevocable trusts for which he does not exercise or share voting or investment control.…
Read the filing
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Al Kapoor Insider or founder | 73.6% | 18 September 2026 | What they saidItem 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and restated as follows: This transaction involved the Reporting Person's gift of shares of Syntec Optics Holdings, Inc. Class A Common Stock to irrevocable trusts for which he does not exercise or share voting or investment control.… Read the filing |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
In the last 12 months, 1 insider bought $79,896 of shares on the open market.
- Manzone AlbertDirectorBought
- Date
- 19 August 2026
- Shares
- 3,681
- Price
- $8.12
- Value
- $29,896
- Manzone AlbertDirectorBought
- Date
- 14 April 2026
- Shares
- 5,000
- Price
- $10.00
- Value
- $50,000
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 August 2026 | Manzone Albert Director | Bought | 3,681 | $8.12 | $29,896 |
| 14 April 2026 | Manzone Albert Director | Bought | 5,000 | $10.00 | $50,000 |
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.
1 serious warning sign in Syntec Optics Holdings’ filings.
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 31 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 10 Aug 2026 and 2 later 8-Ks.
Weak checks on its own accounts
SeriousThe company said its checks on its own accounts did not work at the end of its latest quarter. Mistakes could slip into the numbers.
“Based on the evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of June 30, 2026, our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of such date, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective due to the following identified material weaknesses:”
Show the full paragraph
Disclosure controls and procedures are controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our company’s reports filed under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, cannot provide absolute assurance that the objectives of the controls system are met, and no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within a company have been detected. Based on the evaluation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of June 30, 2026, our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of such date, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective due to the following identified material weaknesses:
From the 10-Q filed 10 August 2026, Part I, Item 4. Controls and Procedures. Read it in the filing
Changed auditor
Worth knowingThe company changed its auditor (the firm that checks its books) in the last two years.
“On August 19, 2026, the Audit Committee (the “Audit Committee”) of the Board of Directors of Syntec Optics Holdings, Inc. (the “Company”) approved the dismissal of CBIZ CPAs P.C. (“CBIZ CPAs”) as the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm, effective as of August 19, 2026.”
From an 8-K filed 25 August 2026: Change of auditor. Read it in the filing
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
- Sales have barely grown: 0.3% a year.
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
Your first deep dive is free.
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.