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BSX, Boston Scientific Corporation

Medical Devices & Equipment consumer brand CyclicalSerial acquirer

Boston Scientific makes the tools and implants that physicians use inside the body during minimally-invasive procedures — devices that open and treat blood vessels, that pace and manage the heart's rhythm, and instruments used in endoscopy, urology, and the stimulation of nerves. The buyers are hospitals and the physicians who perform the procedures, not patients directly. Many of the products are single-use or are left in the body, so each procedure consumes the device and the next one requires a fresh purchase.

We advance science for life by providing a broad range of high-performance solutions to address unmet patient needs and reduce the cost of health care.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

BSX · Boston Scientific Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$20.1B

+19.9% YoY · 15% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $20.6B 5-yr avg $15.1B

Gross margin 69% 5-yr avg 69%

Operating margin 18.4% 5-yr avg 14.6%

ROIC 10% 5-yr avg 6%

Owner-earnings margin 17% 5-yr avg 13%

Free cash flow margin 17% 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: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 58% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 9 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: The question to settle is whether this is a franchise or a commodity, because in devices the two can look alike on the shelf. A moat, if it exists, would sit in the switching cost: a surgeon trained on one company's device and persuaded by its clinical data is slow to change, and the test is whether that loyalty holds the price line where hospital buyers bargain hard and a few large systems do the buying. Two outside hands also sit on the outcome — insurers must agree to pay for the procedure, and certain inputs come from single suppliers, so demand and supply each carry a choke point the company does not own. The firm also puts capital to work buying other device makers and leans on borrowed money to do it, which makes the real test plain: whether the capital deployed earns more than it costs — the figures for margins, returns, and debt are in the record below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 0 of 9 years). By owner earnings: roughly 12% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

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
$8.4B	$9.0B	$9.8B	$10.7B	$9.9B	$11.9B	$12.7B	$14.2B	$16.7B	$20.1B	$20.6B	RevenueRevenue
71%	71%	71%	71%	65%	69%	69%	69%	69%	69%	69%	Gross marginGross mgn
37%	36%	36%	37%	38%	37%	36%	36%	36%	34%	34%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
11%	11%	11%	11%	12%	10%	10%	10%	10%	10%	10%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$447M	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.5B	($80M)	$1.2B	$1.6B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$3.6B	$3.8B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
5.3%	14.2%	15.3%	14.1%	−0.8%	10.1%	13.0%	16.5%	15.5%	18.0%	18.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$347M	$104M	$1.7B	$4.7B	($115M)	$985M	$642M	$1.6B	$1.9B	$2.9B	$3.6B	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	—	4%	41%	20%	19%	15%	5%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.2B	$1.4B	$310M	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.9B	$1.5B	$2.5B	$3.4B	$4.5B	$4.3B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$815M	$844M	$894M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	DepreciationDeprec.
($96M)	$351M	($2.4B)	($4.0B)	$330M	($402M)	($472M)	($496M)	$47M	($31M)	($926M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$376M	$319M	$316M	$461M	$376M	$554M	$588M	$711M	$790M	$876M	$866M	CapexCapex
4.5%	3.5%	3.2%	4.3%	3.8%	4.7%	4.6%	5.0%	4.7%	4.4%	4.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$806M	$1.1B	($6M)	$1.4B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$938M	$1.8B	$2.6B	$3.7B	$3.5B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
9.6%	12.2%	−0.1%	12.8%	11.4%	11.1%	7.4%	12.6%	15.8%	18.2%	16.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$806M	$1.1B	($6M)	$1.4B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$938M	$1.8B	$2.6B	$3.7B	$3.5B	Free cash flowFCF
9.6%	12.2%	−0.1%	12.8%	11.4%	11.1%	7.4%	12.6%	15.8%	18.2%	16.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$408M	$560M	$1.4B	$4.4B	$3M	$2.3B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$4.6B	$1.6B	$1.9B	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	$0	$0	$28M	$55M	$55M	$28M	$0	—	$0	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0	—	$0	$0	$535M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
4%	5%	10%	—	-0%	5%	4%	7%	7%	9%	10%	ROICROIC
5%	1%	19%	34%	-1%	6%	4%	8%	9%	12%	14%	Return on equityROE
—	—	19%	34%	−1%	6%	3%	8%	9%	—	14%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$196M	$188M	$146M	$217M	$1.7B	$1.9B	$928M	$865M	$414M	$2.0B	$1.5B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$955M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$3.1B	InventoryInvent.
$447M	$530M	$349M	$542M	$513M	$794M	$862M	$942M	$960M	$1.1B	$1.1B	Accounts payablePayables
$508M	$548M	$817M	$1.0B	$838M	$816M	$1.0B	$1.5B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.0B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$3.2B	$3.8B	$4.0B	$4.7B	$6.7B	$6.3B	$5.8B	$6.5B	$6.9B	$8.8B	$8.7B	Current assetsCur. assets
$3.6B	$5.7B	$5.3B	$4.9B	$3.7B	$4.3B	$3.8B	$4.9B	$6.4B	$5.4B	$4.6B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.9×	0.7×	0.8×	1.0×	1.8×	1.5×	1.5×	1.3×	1.1×	1.6×	1.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$6.7B	$7.0B	$7.9B	$10.2B	$10.0B	$12.0B	$12.9B	$14.4B	$17.1B	$18.3B	$18.5B	GoodwillGoodwill
$18.1B	$19.0B	$21.0B	$30.6B	$30.8B	$32.2B	$32.5B	$35.1B	$39.4B	$43.7B	$44.4B	Total assetsAssets
$5.7B	$5.6B	$7.1B	$10.0B	$9.1B	$9.1B	$8.9B	$9.1B	$10.7B	$11.1B	$11.6B	Total debtDebt
$5.5B	$5.4B	$6.9B	$9.8B	$7.4B	$7.1B	$8.0B	$8.2B	$10.3B	$9.2B	$10.1B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.9×	5.6×	6.2×	3.2×	-0.2×	3.5×	3.5×	8.8×	8.5×	10.4×	10.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$6.7B	$7.0B	$8.7B	$13.9B	$15.3B	$16.6B	$17.6B	$19.3B	$21.8B	$24.2B	$25.9B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.4%	1.4%	1.4%	1.5%	1.7%	1.6%	1.7%	1.6%	1.6%	1.5%	1.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
1.38B	1.39B	1.40B	1.41B	1.42B	1.43B	1.44B	1.46B	1.49B	1.49B	1.50B	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$6.09	$6.50	$7.01	$7.61	$7.00	$8.29	$8.81	$9.73	$11.27	$13.43	$13.79	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.25	$0.07	$1.19	$3.33	$-0.08	$0.69	$0.45	$1.07	$1.25	$1.94	$2.38	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.59	$0.79	$-0.00	$0.97	$0.80	$0.92	$0.65	$1.22	$1.78	$2.45	$2.32	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.59	$0.79	$-0.00	$0.97	$0.80	$0.92	$0.65	$1.22	$1.78	$2.45	$2.32	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	—	$0.00	$0.00	$0.02	$0.04	$0.04	$0.02	$0.00	—	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.27	$0.23	$0.23	$0.33	$0.27	$0.39	$0.41	$0.49	$0.53	$0.59	$0.58	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.89	$5.03	$6.23	$9.84	$10.82	$11.59	$12.21	$13.18	$14.65	$16.21	$17.30	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.2%/yr	+13.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+17.2%/yr	+25.1%/yr
EPS	+25.5%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+8.9%/yr	+17.2%/yr
Book value / share	+14.2%/yr	+8.4%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

1.5Bpeak FY2025

ROIC

9%low FY2020

Gross margin

69%low FY2020

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.5×peak FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$3.7Bowner earningsvs.$2.9Bnet incomelow FY2018

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 $2.9B of profit into $3.7B 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$2.9B

Owner earnings$3.7B · 18% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.9B	$1.9B	$1.6B	$642M	$985M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.4B	+$1.3B	+$1.2B	+$1.1B	+$1.1B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$299M	+$266M	+$233M	+$220M	+$194M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$31M	+$47M	−$496M	−$472M	−$402M
Cash from operations	$4.5B	$3.4B	$2.5B	$1.5B	$1.9B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$876M	−$790M	−$711M	−$588M	−$554M
Owner earnings	$3.7B	$2.6B	$1.8B	$938M	$1.3B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	18%	16%	13%	7%	11%

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 $299M), owner earnings is nearer $3.4B.

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? 10.4×

Comfortable

Operating income $3.6B ÷ interest expense $349M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $9.2B · 2.5× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $2.0B − debt $11.1B

What this means
Netting $2.0B of cash and short-term investments against $11.1B of debt leaves $9.2B owed, about 2.5× a year's operating profit (3.1× 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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 5%

Below average through the cycle

9-yr median, range -0%–10%; 9% latest = NOPAT $3.1B ÷ invested capital $33.4B

Industry peers: median 10%

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 9 years (it ran 9% 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 11%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -0%–18%; latest $3.7B = operating cash $4.5B − maintenance capex $876M

Industry peers: median 17%

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 18% of revenue this year, a 11% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $299M of SBC) leaves $3.4B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.56×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $4.5B ÷ net income $2.9B

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? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $3.7B

What this means
Of $3.7B Owner Earnings, $0 (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $0 buybacks. 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? 0.64×

Harvesting

Capex $876M ÷ depreciation $1.4B

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 · 2 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 · $20.1B

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.62×

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 · $11.1B vs $3.4B 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 Near

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year

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

Uninterrupted dividends · 4 of 10 yrs

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 · +198%

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 $1.42/share (latest year $1.95), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $16.30/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 9 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
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 12% → 17% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 12% early to 17% lately, median 14% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 8%

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 +14%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 14% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −0.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +0.9%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 4 of the years on record.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

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 Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities, have and may continue to increase in their applicability and importance to various aspects of our business, operating and competitive environments, research and development (R&D) pipeline and product portfolio.…”

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.

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$8.7B

Cash & short-term investments$1.5B
Inventory$3.1B
Other current assets$4.1B

Current liabilities$4.6B

Debt due within a year$41M
Accounts payable$1.1B
Other current liabilities$3.4B

Current ratio1.90×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.22×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.32×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$4.1Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$41M due · $1.5B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+11.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.6× → 1.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$268Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$5.4B$536M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$313Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'27$1.1B

'28$1.2B

'29$1.2B

'30$1.2B

later$6.5B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$1.1Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$2.3Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.2Bin 2028the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$11.1Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.5B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$3.7B

Together, against $1.1B due next year4.8×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $5.1B against the $1.1B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 4.8 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $20.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$5.4B · 27%
Dividends$166M · 1%
Buybacks$535M · 3%
Retained (debt / cash)$14.1B · 70%

Returned to owners$701M
5% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $166M as dividends and $535M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $5.9B and cash and short-term investments rose $1.3B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $535M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count8.6%
The diluted count rose from 1377M to 1495M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.00/sh
Paid in 4 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.
Return on what it retained15%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($14.0B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $2.1B, so each retained $1 added about 0.15 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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$25.3B58% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity75%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$18.6Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $5.4B of capital spent building

$73M written down across 1 year (2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

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	Michael F. Mahoney	$16.1M	$20.4M	$1.3B
2022	Michael F. Mahoney	$16.9M	$21.6M	$938M
2023	Michael F. Mahoney	$18.7M	$38.6M	$1.8B
2024	Michael F. Mahoney	$21.4M	$65.8M	$2.6B
2025	Michael F. Mahoney	$23.5M	$33.0M	$3.7B

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 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio348:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 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$299M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 8% 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 Boston Scientific Corporation 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.

3 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?8.6%
Diluted shares grew 8.6% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $535M 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.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?11% → 15% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $955M to $3.1B while revenue grew 146%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (11% of revenue then, 15% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?10 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 10 of the last 10 years, $1.7B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?

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.

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
MDTMedtronic plc.	$36.4B	67%	17.8%	6%	16%
SYKStryker Corporation	$25.1B	64%	18.3%	10%	15%
DHRDanaher Corporation	$24.6B	57%	19.0%	7%	24%
TTTrane Technologies plc	$21.3B	31%	13.5%	17%	10%
BSXBoston Scientific Corporation	$20.1B	69%	14.2%	5%	12%
ISRGIntuitive Surgical Inc.	$10.1B	68%	30.0%	16%	29%
RMDResMed Inc.	$5.1B	57%	27.1%	17%	19%
DXCMDexCom Inc.	$4.7B	65%	12.1%	10%	17%
Group median	—	64%	18.1%	10%	16%

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 Boston Scientific Corporation has delivered.

Boston Scientific Corporation’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Boston Scientific Corporation earns about $2.4B on its 11.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 18.2% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($2.4B) Net of stock comp (−$308M)

—

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+29%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+14%/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 1486M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-29; net debt $10.1B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. 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 BSX against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Boston Scientific Corporation (BSX), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BSX, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BSVN its page in the Manual BSY →

Industry order: ← BLFS the Medical Devices & Equipment chapter BVS →