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BDX, Becton Dickinson and Company

Medical Devices & Equipment capital-intensive Serial acquirer

A medical-device business, placing equipment that pulls consumables and service behind it.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

BDX · Becton Dickinson and Company

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$21.8B

+8.2% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $22.2B 5-yr avg $19.9B

Gross margin 47% 5-yr avg 45%

Operating margin 11.1% 5-yr avg 11.7%

ROIC 5% 5-yr avg 5%

Owner-earnings margin 16% 5-yr avg 13%

Free cash flow margin 16% 5-yr avg 13%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 65% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 4 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 45% and operating margin about 11% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. Inventory runs near 15% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the installed base and what follows it. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 14% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

41% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States59%$12.8B
EMEA22%$4.7B
Asia14%$3.1B
Other6%$1.2B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$12.5B	$12.1B	$16.0B	$17.3B	$16.1B	$19.1B	$18.9B	$19.4B	$20.2B	$21.8B	$22.2B	RevenueRevenue
48%	49%	45%	48%	42%	45%	45%	42%	45%	45%	47%	Gross marginGross mgn
24%	24%	25%	25%	26%	25%	25%	24%	24%	24%	25%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
7%	6%	6%	6%	6%	7%	7%	6%	6%	6%	6%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$912M	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.1B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.5B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
11.5%	12.6%	9.4%	10.2%	5.7%	11.8%	12.1%	10.9%	11.9%	11.8%	11.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$976M	$1.1B	$311M	$1.2B	$874M	$2.1B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.1B	Net incomeNet inc.
9%	—	—	-5%	7%	4%	8%	8%	15%	11%	18%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.9B	$3.3B	$3.5B	$4.6B	$2.5B	$3.0B	$3.8B	$3.4B	$4.3B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.1B	$1.1B	$2.0B	$2.3B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.5B	$2.5B	DepreciationDeprec.
$273M	$188M	$254M	($417M)	$314M	$96M	($1.8B)	($1.0B)	($394M)	($968M)	$389M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$693M	$727M	$895M	$957M	$769M	$1.2B	$973M	$874M	$725M	$760M	$774M	CapexCapex
5.6%	6.0%	5.6%	5.5%	4.8%	6.2%	5.2%	4.5%	3.6%	3.5%	3.5%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.4B	$2.8B	$3.5B	$1.5B	$2.1B	$3.1B	$2.7B	$3.5B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
14.9%	15.1%	12.3%	13.7%	17.2%	18.0%	7.9%	10.9%	15.5%	12.2%	15.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.4B	$2.8B	$3.5B	$1.5B	$2.1B	$3.1B	$2.7B	$3.5B	Free cash flowFCF
14.9%	15.1%	12.3%	13.7%	17.2%	18.0%	7.9%	10.9%	15.5%	12.2%	15.7%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$174M	$15.2B	$0	$164M	$508M	$2.1B	$0	$3.9B	$0	$13M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$562M	$677M	$927M	$984M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0	$220M	$0	$0	$0	$1.8B	$500M	$0	$500M	$1.0B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
7%	9%	2%	4%	2%	6%	5%	5%	5%	5%	5%	ROICROIC
13%	8%	1%	6%	4%	9%	7%	6%	7%	7%	5%	Return on equityROE
5%	3%	−3%	1%	−1%	4%	3%	1%	2%	2%	−0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$1.6B	$14.2B	$1.2B	$566M	$2.8B	$2.3B	$1.0B	$1.4B	$2.2B	$649M	$816M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.6B	$1.7B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.2B	$2.5B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$2.2B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.5B	$2.6B	$2.7B	$2.7B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$3.8B	$3.9B	$3.4B	InventoryInvent.
$665M	$797M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$5.9B	Accounts payablePayables
$2.7B	$2.8B	$3.7B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$3.4B	$3.7B	$4.2B	$5.0B	$4.9B	($372M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$6.4B	$18.6B	$7.4B	$6.7B	$9.0B	$8.8B	$8.1B	$8.7B	$10.5B	$9.3B	$8.0B	Current assetsCur. assets
$4.4B	$3.3B	$7.2B	$5.7B	$5.8B	$6.6B	$7.8B	$6.6B	$9.0B	$8.3B	$8.5B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	5.6×	1.0×	1.2×	1.5×	1.3×	1.0×	1.3×	1.2×	1.1×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$7.4B	$7.6B	$23.6B	$23.4B	$23.6B	$23.9B	$24.6B	$24.5B	$26.5B	$26.6B	$26.0B	GoodwillGoodwill
$25.6B	$37.7B	$53.9B	$51.8B	$54.0B	$53.9B	$52.9B	$52.8B	$57.3B	$55.3B	$50.8B	Total assetsAssets
$11.6B	$18.9B	$21.5B	$19.4B	$17.9B	$17.6B	$16.1B	$15.9B	$20.1B	$19.2B	$17.3B	Total debtDebt
$10.0B	$4.7B	$20.3B	$18.8B	$15.1B	$15.3B	$15.1B	$14.5B	$17.9B	$18.5B	$16.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
3.7×	2.9×	2.1×	2.8×	1.7×	4.8×	5.7×	4.7×	4.5×	4.2×	4.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$7.6B	$12.9B	$21.0B	$21.1B	$23.8B	$23.7B	$25.3B	$25.8B	$25.9B	$25.4B	$24.1B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.6%	1.4%	2.0%	1.5%	1.5%	1.2%	1.2%	1.3%	1.2%	1.2%	1.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
218M	224M	265M	275M	282M	292M	287M	288M	291M	289M	285M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$57.38	$54.09	$60.40	$62.92	$56.92	$65.50	$65.67	$67.17	$69.34	$75.70	$78.09	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$4.49	$4.92	$1.18	$4.49	$3.09	$7.16	$6.19	$5.15	$5.86	$5.82	$4.00	EPS (diluted)EPS
$8.58	$8.15	$7.44	$8.64	$9.81	$11.82	$5.21	$7.34	$10.72	$9.25	$12.28	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$8.58	$8.15	$7.44	$8.64	$9.81	$11.82	$5.21	$7.34	$10.72	$9.25	$12.28	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.58	$3.03	$3.50	$3.58	$3.63	$3.59	$3.77	$3.86	$3.78	$4.15	$4.16	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$3.19	$3.25	$3.38	$3.48	$2.72	$4.09	$3.39	$3.03	$2.49	$2.63	$2.72	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$35.09	$57.91	$79.34	$76.72	$84.15	$81.06	$87.98	$89.45	$88.97	$88.00	$84.79	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+3.1%/yr	+5.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+0.8%/yr	−1.2%/yr
EPS	+2.9%/yr	+13.4%/yr
Dividends / share	+5.4%/yr	+2.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	−2.1%/yr	−0.7%/yr
Book value / share	+10.8%/yr	+0.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

289Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

5%low FY2018

Gross margin

45%low FY2023

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

6.9×peak FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$2.7Bowner earningsvs.$1.7Bnet incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $1.7B of profit into $2.7B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$1.7B

Owner earnings$2.7B · 12% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$2.1B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$2.5B	+$2.3B	+$2.3B	+$2.2B	+$2.2B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$258M	+$247M	+$259M	+$233M	+$229M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$968M	−$394M	−$1.0B	−$1.8B	+$96M
Cash from operations	$3.4B	$3.8B	$3.0B	$2.5B	$4.6B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$760M	−$725M	−$874M	−$973M	−$1.2B
Owner earnings	$2.7B	$3.1B	$2.1B	$1.5B	$3.5B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	12%	15%	11%	8%	18%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $258M), owner earnings is nearer $2.4B.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 4.2×

Adequate

Operating income $2.6B ÷ interest expense $613M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $18.5B · 7.2× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $641M + ST investments $8M − debt $19.2B

What this means
Netting $649M of cash and short-term investments against $19.2B of debt leaves $18.5B owed, about 7.2× a year's operating profit (7.4× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 109d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 50 + DIO 119 − DPO 60 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 5%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range 2%–9%; 5% latest = NOPAT $2.3B ÷ invested capital $43.9B

Industry peers: median 12%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 5% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 14%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 8%–18%; latest $2.7B = operating cash $3.4B − maintenance capex $760M

Industry peers: median 12%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 12% of revenue this year, a 14% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $258M of SBC) leaves $2.4B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.04×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $3.4B ÷ net income $1.7B

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 82%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $2.2B ÷ Owner Earnings $2.7B

What this means
Of $2.7B Owner Earnings, $2.2B (82%) went back to shareholders, $1.2B dividends, $1.0B buybacks. Net of $258M stock comp, the real buyback was about $742M. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.31×

Harvesting

Capex $760M ÷ depreciation $2.5B

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 4 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $21.8B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.11×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $19.2B vs $942M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +104%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $5.89/share (latest year $6.09), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $92.15/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 11% → 12% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words Input costs rose and the filing says it recovered them in price — consistent with the margin holding here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 11% early, 12% lately, median 11%.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 5%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth +5%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 5% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · 5.7% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +3.2%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Promotional

What this means
The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$8.0B

Cash & short-term investments$816M
Receivables$2.2B
Inventory$3.4B
Other current assets$1.6B

Current liabilities$8.5B

Debt due within a year$2.6B
Accounts payable$5.9B

Current ratio0.94×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.55×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.10×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($495M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$2.6B due · $816M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+5.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.8× → 0.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($10.2B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$18.1B$839M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $32.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$8.6B · 27%
Dividends$9.7B · 30%
Buybacks$4.0B · 12%
Retained (debt / cash)$10.0B · 31%

Returned to owners$13.7B
58% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $9.7B as dividends and $4.0B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $5.7B and cash and short-term investments fell $752M.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $4.0B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count30.8%
The diluted count rose from 218M to 285M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$4.15/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 5% a year. It was never cut over the span.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$36.0B65% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$22.0Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $8.6B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Thomas E. Polen	$14.2M	$16.7M	$3.5B
2022	Thomas E. Polen	$16.7M	$15.0M	$1.5B
2023	Thomas E. Polen	$17.3M	$29.8M	$2.1B
2024	Thomas E. Polen	$17.3M	$9.5M	$3.1B
2025	Thomas E. Polen	$17.1M	$3.5M	$2.7B

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio374:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$258M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 10% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Becton Dickinson and Company is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?30.8%
Diluted shares grew 30.8% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $4.0B on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Pension & retirement, Income taxes as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Medical Devices & Equipment

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
MDLNMedline Inc.	$28.4B	26%	7.8%	10%	6%
MMM3M Company	$24.9B	47%	20.2%	22%	16%
BDXBecton Dickinson and Company	$21.8B	45%	11.6%	5%	14%
GEHCGE Healthcare Technologies Inc.	$20.6B	—	13.4%	13%	8%
BAXBaxter International Inc.	$11.2B	40%	9.2%	6%	10%
SOLVSolventum Corporation	$8.3B	—	20.7%	12%	14%
STESteris	$5.9B	43%	16.1%	8%	12%
WSTWest Pharmaceutical	$3.1B	35%	19.0%	19%	17%
Group median	—	42%	14.7%	11%	13%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Becton Dickinson and Company has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Becton Dickinson and Company earns about $3.1B on its 14.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.2% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($3.1B) Net of stock comp (−$276M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+4%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+5%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $3.5B on 276M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-03-31; net debt $16.5B. The if-converted diluted count is 285M, 3% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh BDX against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Becton Dickinson and Company (BDX), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BDX, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BDN its page in the Manual BE →

Industry order: ← BDMD the Medical Devices & Equipment chapter BFLY →