Owner Scorecard


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USNA, USANA Health Sciences

Pharmaceuticals consumer brand

USANA Health Sciences, Inc. develops and manufactures high-quality nutritional supplements, functional foods and personal care products that are sold throughout the world.

In 2025, we generated $925 million in net sales and finished the year with approximately 387,000 active Customers in our core nutritional business.

D. and since that time, we have developed and manufactured high quality, science-based nutritional, personal care and skincare products with a primary focus on promoting long-term health and wellness.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K
USNA · USANA Health Sciences
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2026
$925M
+8.3% YoY · −3% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $926M 5-yr avg $967M
Gross margin 78% 5-yr avg 80%
Operating margin 3.8% 5-yr avg 9.6%
ROIC 4% 5-yr avg 39%
Owner-earnings margin 0% 5-yr avg 7%
Free cash flow margin 0% 5-yr avg 7%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What moves the needle
Gross margin has run about 82% and operating margin about 13% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. 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 57%, above 15% in 7 of 9 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192021’212022’222023’232024’242026’26TTMTTMApr 2026
Income statement
$1.0B$1.0B$1.2B$1.1B$1.1B$999M$921M$855M$925M$926MRevenueRevenue
82%83%83%82%82%81%81%81%78%78%Gross marginGross mgn
23%25%23%25%23%26%28%31%36%36%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
1%1%1%1%1%1%1%1%1%1%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$139M$133M$188M$146M$176M$108M$93M$66M$37M$36MOperating incomeOp. inc.
13.8%12.7%15.8%13.8%15.6%10.8%10.1%7.8%4.0%3.8%Operating marginOp. mgn
$100M$63M$126M$101M$125M$69M$64M$42M$11M$9MNet incomeNet inc.
28%54%34%33%30%36%38%45%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$137M$124M$152M$127M$160M$104M$71M$61M$22M$17MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$13M$16M$17M$15M$14M$13M$13M$15M$33M$33MDepreciationDeprec.
$7M$30M($6M)($4M)$8M$8M($20M)($10M)($35M)($39M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$33M$13M$11M$17M$15M$10M$14M$10M$14M$14MCapexCapex
3.3%1.3%1.0%1.6%1.3%1.0%1.6%1.2%1.5%1.5%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$104M$111M$141M$110M$145M$94M$56M$51M$9M$3MOwner earningsOwner earn.
10.4%10.6%11.8%10.4%12.8%9.4%6.1%6.0%0.9%0.3%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$104M$111M$141M$110M$145M$94M$56M$51M$9M$3MFree cash flowFCF
10.4%10.6%11.8%10.4%12.8%9.4%6.1%6.0%0.9%0.3%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0$7M$0$203M$0$0AcquisitionsAcquis.
$65M$50M$105M$150M$57M$25M$12M$9M$28MBuybacksBuybacks
67%57%70%84%95%47%35%10%5%4%ROICROIC
31%17%32%29%28%16%13%8%2%2%Return on equityROE
31%17%32%29%28%16%13%8%2%2%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$176M$247M$214M$235M$312M$288M$330M$182M$158M$163MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$65M$63M$82M$69M$98M$67M$61M$70M$103M$96MInventoryInvent.
$9M$12M$10M$13M$18M$11M$10M$12M$17M$16MAccounts payablePayables
$56M$51M$72M$56M$80M$56M$51M$58M$85M$90MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$278M$340M$392M$329M$425M$384M$418M$279M$288M$294MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$138M$141M$149M$136M$168M$144M$119M$140M$129M$117MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.0×2.4×2.6×2.4×2.5×2.7×3.5×2.0×2.2×2.5×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$17M$17M$17M$17M$17M$17M$17M$144M$138M$138MGoodwillGoodwill
$471M$519M$554M$517M$641M$597M$633M$748M$743M$739MTotal assetsAssets
312.2×2880.5×5232.0×2215.0×348.1×1888.0×355.2×236.0×44.5×53.1×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$325M$363M$391M$352M$442M$434M$497M$532M$533M$544MShareholders’ equityEquity
1.6%1.5%1.3%1.5%1.3%1.3%1.6%1.7%1.5%1.6%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
25.0M24.7M24.6M22.8M21.3M19.3M19.3M19.2M18.6M18.4MShares out (diluted)Shares
$40.17$42.39$48.26$46.49$53.38$51.71$47.61$44.59$49.81$50.29Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.99$2.53$5.12$4.41$5.86$3.59$3.30$2.19$0.58$0.48EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.16$4.47$5.71$4.83$6.84$4.84$2.90$2.66$0.46$0.16Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$4.16$4.47$5.71$4.83$6.84$4.84$2.90$2.66$0.46$0.16Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.31$0.54$0.46$0.73$0.71$0.54$0.75$0.53$0.74$0.74Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$12.99$14.70$15.87$15.41$20.78$22.50$25.70$27.77$28.70$29.52Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
10-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+2.2%/yr−1.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share−19.8%/yr−41.7%/yr
EPS−17.6%/yr−37.1%/yr
Capital spending / share−5.5%/yr+0.9%/yr
Book value / share+8.3%/yr+6.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2026

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

Share count
19Mpeak FY2016
ROIC
5%low FY2026
Gross margin
78%low FY2026

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$9Mowner earningsvs.$11Mnet incomelow FY2026

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.

FY2016FY2026

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 2026 the business reported $11M of profit but $9M of owner earnings: $2M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$11M
Owner earnings$9M · 1% of revenue
FY2026FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$11M$42M$64M$69M$125M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$33M+$15M+$13M+$13M+$14M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$14M+$15M+$15M+$13M+$14M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$35M−$10M−$20M+$8M+$8M
Cash from operations$22M$61M$71M$104M$160M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$14M−$10M−$14M−$10M−$15M
Owner earnings$9M$51M$56M$94M$145M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue1%6%6%9%13%

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 $14M), owner earnings is nearer ($5M).

Much of fiscal 2026'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

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Comfortable
    Operating income $37M ÷ interest expense $842K
    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.

  • Net cash, debt-free
    Cash $158M − debt $0
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $158M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Not enough data
    What this means

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

Is it a good business?

  • Not enough data
    Industry peers: median -11%
    What this means

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

  • Solid through the cycle
    9-yr median margin, range 1%–13%; latest $9M = operating cash $22M − maintenance capex $14M
    Industry peers: median -14%
    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 1% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $14M of SBC) leaves ($5M).

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops $22M ÷ net income $11M
    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?

  • Returned more than it generated
    Dividends + buybacks $28M ÷ Owner Earnings $9M
    What this means

    The company returned more than it generated: against $9M of Owner Earnings, $28M (323%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $28M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $14M stock comp, the real buyback was about $14M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.

  • Investing or harvesting? 0.42×
    Harvesting
    Capex $14M ÷ depreciation $33M
    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 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 · $925M
    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× · 2.24×
    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.

  • Earnings stability Pass
    A profit every year (9-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 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 Miss
    Earnings +33% over the record · −60%
    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 $2.10/share (latest year $0.58), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $28.87/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, 2016–2026

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

  • Profitable years 9 of 9
    What this means

    Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.

  • Operating margin 14% → 7% (3-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 14% early to 7% lately, median 13% — competition or costs are biting in.

  • Owner earnings growth −12%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings shrank about 12% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2026 · 4.0% op. margin
    What this means

    Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.

  • Share count −2.9%/yr
    What this means

    The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.

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 FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Additionally, our failure to develop and utilize AI technology throughout our business could negatively impact our competitive position in the market.”

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, Apr 4, 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$294M
  • Cash & short-term investments$163M
  • Receivables$10M
  • Inventory$96M
  • Other current assets$25M
Current liabilities$117M
  • Accounts payable$16M
  • Other current liabilities$101M
Current ratio2.51×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.69×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.39×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$177Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+0.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters4.0× → 2.5×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$277Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$150MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$18M$18M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$11Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2026

Over the record, the business generated $958M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$138M · 14%
  • Buybacks$501M · 52%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$319M · 33%
  • Returned to owners$501M

    61% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $501M as buybacks.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$69.06

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 7M shares were bought for $501M, about $69.06 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $29.67 (2026) to $117.08 (2018); its heaviest year, 2019, paid $74.66 ($150M).

  • Net change in share count−26.5%

    The diluted count fell from 25M to 18M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend record

    No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

  • Return on what it retained−40%

    Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($199M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $80M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.40 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 9-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$271M36% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity26%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$210Mover 9 years buying other businesses, against $138M of capital spent building

$7M written down across 1 year (2026): 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 9-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 yearPay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021$3.9M$6.0M$145M
2022$3.7M−$592k$94M
2023$2.5M$2.4M$56M
2023$3.9M$3.8M$56M
2024$3.4M$2.1M$51M
2026$4.3M$2.4M$9M

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 ratio85:1

    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$14M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 37% 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 USANA Health Sciences 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 2016–2026.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

  • Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?4.3% vs 10.9%

    The owner-earnings margin averaged 10.9% early in the record and 4.3% 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 receivables and inventory outpace sales?6% → 10% of sales

    Receivables and inventory grew from $65M to $96M while revenue grew −8%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (6% of revenue then, 10% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean
  • Did the share count rise anyway?
  • Did reported profit become cash?
  • 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, FY2026

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Acquisitions 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, Pharmaceuticals

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
TRLVTrulieve Cannabis Corp.$1.2B60%12.1%6%13%
MDGLMadrigal Pharmaceuticals Inc.$958M99%-276.4%-61%-254%
IONSIonis Pharmaceuticals$944M99%-16.9%-11%-14%
USNAUSANA Health Sciences$925M82%12.7%57%10%
ANIPANI Pharmaceuticals Inc.$883M62%8.8%4%17%
BCRXBioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.$875M95%-148.8%-142%-128%
HRMYHarmony Biosciences Holdings Inc.$868M79%26.7%38%32%
TLRYTilray Brands Inc. Common Stock$821M24%-66.6%-32%-32%
Group median80%-4.1%-4%-2%
IV

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 USANA Health Sciences has delivered.

$

Through the cycle, USANA Health Sciences earns about $96M on its 10.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 0.9% 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

The assumptions

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→’26−24%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’26−12%/yr
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’26)
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 $3M on 18M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-08; net cash $97M. 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.

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

Manual order: ← USLM its page in the Manual USPH →

Industry order: ← URGN the Pharmaceuticals chapter UTHR →