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QDEL, QuidelOrtho

Biotechnology consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundCyclical

Our global infrastructure and commercial reach support our customers across more than 140 countries and territories with quality diagnostics, a broad test portfolio and market-leading service.

We generate our revenue in the following business units: Labs, Transfusion Medicine (Immunohematology and Donor Screening product categories), Point of Care and Molecular Diagnostics.

Specifically, we are winding-down the VIP platform and microplate assays, which are only sold in the U.S. and have a lower growth and margin profile.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

QDEL · QuidelOrtho

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$2.7B

−1.9% YoY · 13% 4-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $2.7B 5-yr avg $2.4B

Operating margin −37.0% 5-yr avg 3.5%

ROIC −17% 5-yr avg 30%

Owner-earnings margin −6% 5-yr avg 15%

Free cash flow margin −6% 5-yr avg 12%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

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. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 4.6% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −70% to 64% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Inventory runs near 19% 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 pipeline against the patent cliff, and pricing. 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 run high across the record (median 24%, above 15% in 2 of 4 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

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 →

47% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

Domestic53%$1.4B
Foreign47%$1.3B

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, 2021–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
						Income statement
$1.7B	$1.7B	$3.0B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$2.7B	RevenueRevenue
11%	14%	25%	28%	27%	29%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
5%	6%	8%	8%	7%	7%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$1.1B	$906M	$139M	($2.0B)	($919M)	($984M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
63.8%	53.3%	4.6%	−70.5%	−33.7%	−37.0%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$810M	$704M	($10M)	($2.1B)	($1.1B)	($1.2B)	Net incomeNet inc.
						Cash flow & returns
$630M	$806M	$280M	$83M	$105M	$7M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$49M	$53M	$457M	$453M	$442M	$448M	DepreciationDeprec.
($250M)	$24M	($219M)	$1.6B	$749M	$725M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$65M	$293M	$209M	$195M	$188M	$166M	CapexCapex
3.9%	17.2%	7.0%	7.0%	6.9%	6.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$581M	$753M	$71M	($112M)	($83M)	($159M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
35.0%	44.3%	2.4%	−4.0%	−3.0%	−6.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$565M	$513M	$71M	($112M)	($83M)	($159M)	Free cash flowFCF
34.0%	30.2%	2.4%	−4.0%	−3.0%	−6.0%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$0	$1.5B	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$44M	$104M	$7M	$0	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
98%	63%	—	-27%	-16%	-17%	ROICROIC
61%	36%	-0%	-69%	-59%	-65%	Return on equityROE
61%	36%	−0%	−69%	−59%	−65%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
						Balance sheet
$490M	$866M	$175M	$98M	$170M	$140M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$378M	$303M	$282M	$417M	$360M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$199M	$578M	$534M	$578M	$612M	InventoryInvent.
—	$102M	$295M	$246M	$279M	$244M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$475M	$586M	$570M	$715M	$728M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.4B	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$324M	$834M	$999M	$966M	$962M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	4.5×	1.6×	1.2×	1.5×	1.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$337M	$2.5B	$650M	$0	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$2.4B	$8.6B	$6.4B	$5.8B	$5.6B	Total assetsAssets
—	$700K	$2.6B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$2.9B	Total debtDebt
—	($866M)	$2.4B	$2.7B	$2.7B	$2.8B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
—	—	0.9×	-12.0×	-5.2×	-5.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.3B	$1.9B	$4.9B	$3.0B	$1.9B	$1.9B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.3%	1.5%	1.7%	1.5%	1.7%	1.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	$1.8B	$701M	$701M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
						Per share
43.6M	42.9M	66.8M	67.2M	67.8M	68.2M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$38.11	$39.59	$44.88	$41.41	$40.27	$38.96	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$18.58	$16.41	$-0.15	$-30.54	$-16.69	$-17.76	EPS (diluted)EPS
$13.32	$17.56	$1.06	$-1.67	$-1.22	$-2.34	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$12.95	$11.96	$1.06	$-1.67	$-1.22	$-2.34	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.49	$6.83	$3.13	$2.90	$2.78	$2.43	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$30.57	$44.97	$73.87	$44.41	$28.33	$27.15	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.56 into 2023 — 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

	4-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.4%/yr	+1.4%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	+16.9%/yr	+16.9%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share	−1.9%/yr	−1.9%/yr (4-yr)

The record, charted

FY2021–2025

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

Share count

68Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−16%low FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($83M)owner earningsvs.($1.1B)net incomelow FY2024

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.

FY2021FY2025

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 a $1.1B loss into ($83M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($1.1B)	($2.1B)	($10M)	$704M	$810M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$442M	+$453M	+$457M	+$53M	+$49M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$46M	+$42M	+$52M	+$25M	+$21M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$749M	+$1.6B	−$219M	+$24M	−$250M
Cash from operations	$105M	$83M	$280M	$806M	$630M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$188M	−$195M	−$209M	−$53M	−$49M
Owner earnings	($83M)	($112M)	$71M	$753M	$581M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$240M	−$16M
Free cash flow	($83M)	($112M)	$71M	$513M	$565M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-3%	-4%	2%	44%	35%

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 $46M), owner earnings is nearer ($129M).

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? -5.2×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($919M) ÷ interest expense $178M

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.7B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $170M − debt $2.9B

What this means
Netting $170M of cash and short-term investments against $2.9B of debt leaves $2.7B 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.
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 -16%

Below average through the cycle

4-yr median, range -27%–98%; -16% latest = NOPAT ($726M) ÷ invested capital $4.6B

Industry peers: median 18%

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 4 years (it ran -16% 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 2%

Thin through the cycle

5-yr median margin, range -4%–44%; latest ($83M) = operating cash $105M − maintenance capex $188M

Industry peers: median 18%

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 -3% of revenue this year, a 2% median across 5 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $46M of SBC) leaves ($129M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $105M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($1.1B) · cash from operations $105M

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.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

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? 0.43×

Harvesting

Capex $188M ÷ depreciation $442M

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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.7B

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× · 1.50×

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 · $2.9B vs $481M 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 (5-yr record) · 3 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.
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 $-15.61/share (latest year $-16.60), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $28.16/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, 2021–2025

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

Profitable years 2 of 5

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 4 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 59% → −52% (2-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 59% early to −52% lately, median 5% — competition or costs are biting in.
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 2024 · −70.5% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +11.7%/yr

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

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 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.

“If we fail to incorporate AI that meets our internal and customer needs, we may fail to recoup our investments, and our competitive position and reputation may be adversely impacted.”

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 29, 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$140M
Receivables$360M
Inventory$612M
Other current assets$265M

Current liabilities$962M

Debt due within a year$228M
Accounts payable$244M
Other current liabilities$491M

Current ratio1.43×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.80×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.15×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$415Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$228M due · $140M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Mar 29, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−10.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 1.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($669M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.4B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.1B$187M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$50Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2021–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.9B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$950M · 50%
Buybacks$154M · 8%
Retained (debt / cash)$799M · 42%

Returned to owners$154M
13% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $154M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $154M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count56.4%
The diluted count rose from 44M to 68M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

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 5-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$2.6B44% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity0%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$1.5Bover 5 years buying other businesses, against $950M of capital spent building

$2.5B written down across 2 years (2024, 2025): 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 5-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.

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 ratio154:1
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$46M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why QuidelOrtho 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 2021–2025.

2 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−3.5% vs 39.7%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 39.7% early in the record and −3.5% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?56.4%
Diluted shares grew 56.4% over 2021–2025, even as the company spent $154M 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

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 Income taxes, Inventory 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, Biotechnology

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
IDXXIDEXX Laboratories Inc.	$4.3B	58%	26.2%	57%	18%
BMRNBioMarin	$3.2B	78%	-1.7%	-1%	1%
UTHRUnited Therapeutics	$3.2B	92%	47.5%	20%	39%
AMRXAmneal Pharmaceuticals Inc.	$3.0B	37%	7.9%	3%	9%
NBIXNeurocrine	$2.9B	99%	11.2%	10%	21%
QDELQuidelOrtho	$2.7B	—	4.6%	24%	2%
EXELExelixis Inc.	$2.3B	96%	23.9%	18%	34%
LNTHLantheus Holdings	$1.5B	51%	17.2%	24%	17%
Group median	—	—	14.2%	19%	17%

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 QuidelOrtho has delivered.

QuidelOrtho’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, QuidelOrtho earns about $65M on its 2.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −3.0% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($65M) Net of stock comp (−$45M)

—

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, delivered—

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 ($159M) on 68M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-28; net debt $2.8B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off 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 QDEL against another business →

The owners of QDEL: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← QCRH its page in the Manual QLYS →

Industry order: ← PROK the Biotechnology chapter QGEN →