Owner Scorecard


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GH, Guardant Health Inc.

Life Sciences Tools & Services consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

Therapy Selection Guardant360 CDx Test We believe our Guardant360 CDx test was the first comprehensive liquid biopsy test approved by the FDA, and is the market leading comprehensive liquid biopsy test, based on the number of tests ordered.

Our product portfolio is now powered by our Smart Platform, which utilizes methylation technology with genomic, epigenomic, and RNA-based data, to unlock multi-modal biology with proprietary chemistry, advanced algorithms and our InfinityAI learning engine.

The FDA has granted Breakthrough Device designation to our Shield MCD test to provide patients and healthcare providers with timely access to medical devices by speeding up their development, assessment and review.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
GH · Guardant Health Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$982M
+32.9% YoY · 28% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $1.1B 5-yr avg $622M
Gross margin 65% 5-yr avg 62%
Operating margin −41.4% 5-yr avg −87.2%
ROIC −106% 5-yr avg −89%
Owner-earnings margin −21% 5-yr avg −52%
Free cash flow margin −22% 5-yr avg −57%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What it is
Revenue is Oncology (70%), Biopharma and data (21%) and Screening (8%).
Situation
Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −103% through the cycle on a 61% gross margin, the operating line in the red even at its best — so the lever is whether the spending below the gross line can come down enough to clear a profit: revenue growth against the cost curve, and the cash runway until it does. Stock-based pay runs about 16% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on volume, payer mix and reimbursement. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, 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 −30%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. 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 →

Oncology is 70% of revenue, with Biopharma and data the other meaningful line at 21%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025
  • Oncology70%$684M
  • Biopharma and data21%$210M
  • Screening8%$80M
  • Licensing and other1%$9M
By geographyUnited States94%International6%

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$25M$50M$91M$214M$287M$374M$450M$564M$739M$982M$1.1BRevenueRevenue
60%61%64%65%Gross marginGross mgn
39%74%40%29%67%55%36%28%24%22%21%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
43%51%56%40%52%70%83%65%47%37%34%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($44M)($77M)($93M)($82M)($255M)($411M)($544M)($565M)($444M)($437M)($448M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−173.7%−153.7%−102.5%−38.4%−88.9%−110.0%−121.1%−100.1%−60.0%−44.5%−41.4%Operating marginOp. mgn
($46M)($83M)($85M)($76M)($254M)($385M)($655M)($479M)($436M)($416M)($433M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
($37M)($72M)($72M)($47M)($104M)($209M)($309M)($325M)($240M)($185M)($188M)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$4M$5M$7M$11M$16M$22M$36M$43M$42M$40M$39MDepreciationDeprec.
$4M$2M($1M)$152K($10M)$2M$214M$21M$14M$26M$30MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$2M$7M$20M$19M$36M$75M$77M$20M$35M$48M$49MCapexCapex
7.0%13.4%22.3%8.7%12.6%20.1%17.2%3.6%4.7%4.9%4.6%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($38M)($77M)($79M)($59M)($120M)($231M)($345M)($345M)($275M)($233M)($227M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
−152.4%−155.4%−87.5%−27.3%−41.8%−61.9%−76.8%−61.3%−37.2%−23.7%−21.0%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($38M)($79M)($92M)($66M)($140M)($284M)($387M)($345M)($275M)($233M)($237M)Free cash flowFCF
−152.4%−158.3%−101.9%−30.7%−48.9%−76.0%−86.1%−61.3%−37.2%−23.7%−22.0%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0$0$7M$0$0$0$0$59M$59MAcquisitionsAcquis.
$100K$7M$172K$0$0$0$0$45MBuybacksBuybacks
-75%-26%-21%-10%-16%-25%-41%-270%-73%-34%-106%ROICROIC
-58%-27%-18%-9%-20%-60%-1088%-302%Return on equityROE
−58%−27%−18%−9%−20%−60%n/m−302%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$34M$295M$497M$792M$2.0B$1.6B$1.0B$1.1B$526M$378M$1.9BCash & investmentsCash+inv
$13M$36M$48M$53M$98M$97M$89M$110M$138M$137MReceivablesReceiv.
$7M$9M$15M$23M$31M$52M$62M$71M$86M$84MInventoryInvent.
$5M$11M$16M$7M$39M$69M$52M$39M$54M$75MAccounts payablePayables
$15M$34M$47M$69M$90M$80M$99M$143M$169M$146MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$243M$469M$597M$1.9B$1.1B$1.2B$1.3B$1.1B$1.5B$1.4BCurrent assetsCur. assets
$20M$47M$73M$67M$195M$193M$206M$226M$303M$292MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
12.4×10.0×8.2×28.3×5.7×6.2×6.5×4.7×4.8×4.7×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$0$3M$3M$3M$3M$3M$3M$77M$77MGoodwillGoodwill
$343M$587M$963M$2.3B$2.2B$1.6B$1.8B$1.5B$2.0B$1.9BTotal assetsAssets
$0$806M$1.1B$1.1B$1.1B$1.1B$1.5B$1.5BTotal debtDebt
($792M)($1.2B)($496M)$126M$6M$617M$1.1B($355M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-14.5×-28.4×-74.3×-69.7×-53.5×-159.5×-211.2×-219.1×-171.9×-112.2×-100.5×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$80M$309M$483M$798M$1.3B$645M$60M$159M($140M)($99M)($181M)Shareholders’ equityEquity
7.8%7.4%7.6%7.9%50.3%40.5%21.1%16.1%19.0%16.9%16.3%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
13.1M12.6M30.4M90.6M97.5M101M102M112M123M125M131MShares out (diluted)Shares
$1.93$3.96$2.98$2.37$2.94$3.69$4.40$5.04$6.02$7.83$8.23Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-3.53$-6.61$-2.80$-0.84$-2.60$-3.80$-6.41$-4.28$-3.56$-3.32$-3.30EPS (diluted)EPS
$-2.95$-6.15$-2.61$-0.65$-1.23$-2.28$-3.38$-3.08$-2.24$-1.86$-1.73Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-2.95$-6.27$-3.04$-0.73$-1.44$-2.80$-3.79$-3.08$-2.24$-1.86$-1.81Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.14$0.53$0.66$0.21$0.37$0.74$0.76$0.18$0.29$0.39$0.38Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$6.11$24.53$15.89$8.81$13.32$6.37$0.59$1.42$-1.14$-0.79$-1.38Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.42 into 2018 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.98 into 2019 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+16.8%/yr+21.6%/yr
Capital spending / share+12.3%/yr+0.8%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

  • Oncology+25.9%
    “Oncology revenue was $683.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to $542.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, an increase of $140.8 million, or 26%. This increase was driven primarily by an increase in oncology test volume to approximately 276,000 for the year ended December 31, 2025, from approximately 206,700 for the year ended December 31, 2024.”
    ✓ figure matches the filed record
  • Biopharma and data+18.3%
    “Biopharma and data revenue was $210.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to $177.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, an increase of $32.6 million, or 18%. This increase was driven primarily by an increase in volume of our GuardantINFINITY test, as well as an increase in revenue derived from the achievement of certain milestones of our companion diagnostic development and regulatory approval service agreements and revenue derived from our data services.”
    ✓ figure matches the filed record
  • Licensing and other-36.5%
    “Licensing and other revenue was $8.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, compared to $13.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2024, a decrease of $4.9 million, primarily due to nonrecurring milestone revenue recorded related to one of our partnership agreements for the year ended December 31, 2024.”
    ✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count
125Mpeak FY2025
ROIC
−34%low FY2023
Gross margin
64%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($233M)owner earningsvs.($416M)net incomelow FY2023

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 a $416M loss into ($233M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($416M)($436M)($479M)($655M)($385M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$40M+$42M+$43M+$36M+$22M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$166M+$140M+$91M+$95M+$151M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$26M+$14M+$21M+$214M+$2M
Cash from operations($185M)($240M)($325M)($309M)($209M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume−$48M−$35M−$20M−$36M−$22M
Owner earnings($233M)($275M)($345M)($345M)($231M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still−$41M−$53M
Free cash flow($233M)($275M)($345M)($387M)($284M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-24%-37%-61%-77%-62%

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 $166M), owner earnings is nearer ($399M).

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?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($437M) ÷ interest expense $4M
    What this means

    A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.

  • Net debt against an operating loss
    Cash $378M + ST investments $870M − debt $1.5B
    What this means

    Netting $1.2B of cash and short-term investments against $1.5B of debt leaves $256M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 51 + DIO 90 − DPO 57 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?

  • Below average through the cycle
    10-yr median, range -270%–-10%; -34% latest = NOPAT ($345M) ÷ invested capital $1.0B
    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 -34% 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.

  • Consumes cash through the cycle
    10-yr median margin, range -155%–-24%; latest ($233M) = operating cash ($185M) − maintenance capex $48M
    Industry peers: median -30%
    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 -24% of revenue this year, a -62% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $166M of SBC) leaves ($399M).

  • Loss, and burning cash
    Net income ($416M) · cash from operations ($185M)
    What this means

    The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.

How is the cash used?

  • No surplus to allocate
    What this means

    The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.

  • Investing or harvesting? 1.22×
    Expanding
    Capex $48M ÷ depreciation $40M
    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 · 1 of 5 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 Miss
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $982M
    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 Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 4.84×
    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 Near
    Debt ≤ working capital · $1.5B vs $1.2B 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 Miss
    A profit every year (10-yr record) · 10 loss years
    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 · none paid
    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
    Earnings +33% over the record ·
    What this means

    Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

  • 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 $-3.35/share (latest year $-3.14), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.75/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 0 of 10
    What this means

    Lost money in 10 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 7 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 −143% → −68% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −143% early to −68% lately, median −103% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
    What this means

    The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.

  • Worst year 2016 · −173.7% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2016, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Our competitors within the liquid biopsy space for therapy selection include Foundation Medicine, Inc., which was acquired by Roche Holdings, Inc. in 2018; Caris Life Sciences, Inc.; Tempus AI, Inc.; NeoGenomics, Inc.; Exact Sciences Corporation; BillionToOne, Inc.; Quest Diagnostics, Inc.; and Laboratory Corporation o…”

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

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$1.4B
  • Cash & short-term investments$1.9B
  • Receivables$137M
  • Inventory$84M
Current liabilities$292M
  • Accounts payable$75M
  • Other current liabilities$217M
Current ratio4.68×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio4.39×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio6.36×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$1.1Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Cash runway7.8 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+48.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters6.4× → 4.7×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($284M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($729M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$1.7B$201M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$57Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2022AmirAli Talasaz$11k−$68.7M($345M)
2022Helmy Eltoukhy$12k−$68.7M($345M)
2023AmirAli Talasaz$26k−$4.2M($345M)
2023Helmy Eltoukhy$12k−$4.2M($345M)
2024AmirAli Talasaz$11.6M$15.0M($275M)
2024Helmy Eltoukhy$11.6M$15.0M($275M)
2025AmirAli Talasaz$8.7M$79.8M($233M)
2025Helmy Eltoukhy$8.7M$79.8M($233M)

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 ownership5.6%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • CEO pay ratio44:1

    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$166M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 17% of revenue. 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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
    ≈$119M · 11% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
    “In the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024 and 2023, revenue from our top five biopharmaceutical customers, including their affiliated entities, accounted for 11%, 13% and 14% of our total revenue, respectively.”verify →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Stock compensation 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, Life Sciences Tools & Services

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
EXASExact Sciences$3.2B70%-36.6%-13%-13%
GHGuardant Health Inc.$982M61%-101.3%-30%-62%
CDNACareDx Inc.$380M61%-19.8%-26%-30%
BLLNBillionToOne Inc.$305M53%-30.9%-31%
Group median61%-33.7%-26%-30%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Guardant Health Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

$
The assumptions

Revenue, delivered27%/yr’20→’25

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach
Margin the price demands
Owner-earnings margin today−22%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Guardant Health Inc. (GH), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/GH, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← GGG its page in the Manual GHC →

Industry order: ← FTRE the Life Sciences Tools & Services chapter GRAL →