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Becton, Dickinson and Company

Data period: Annual Quarterly Graham uses annual
NYSE · Healthcare
Becton, Dickinson and Company
BDX · Medical Instruments & Supplies
$143.98
▲ 2.37 (1.67%)
Cached · 10 min
Overall Grade
C
Defensive
C
Enterprising
Profitability
D
Gross Profit Margin 45.7%
Operating Margin 13.3%
Net Income Margin -6.6%
Fin. Health
F
Years to Pay Off Debt -55.6 yrs
Working Capital vs Long-Term Debt -$15.2B
Working Capital -$495M
Valuation
C
Price-to-Book 1.64x
Cash Flow
A
Free Cash Flow $475M
Owner Earnings $334M
About Becton, Dickinson and Company
Becton, Dickinson and Company develops, manufactures, and sells medical supplies, devices, laboratory equipment, and diagnostic products for healthcare institutions, physicians, life science researchers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical industry, and the general public worldwide. It operates through Medical Essentials, Connected Care, BioPharma Systems, Interventional and Life Sciences segments. It provides peripheral intravenous (IV) and advanced peripheral catheters, central lines, acute dialysis catheters, vascular access technology, vascular care and preparation products, needle-free IV connectors and extensions sets, closed-system drug transfer devices, hazardous drug detections, hypodermic syringes and needles, anesthesia needles and trays, enteral syringes, and sharps disposal systems; IV medication safety and infusion therapy delivery systems, medication compounding workflow system, automated medication dispensing and supply management systems, informatics and analytics and pharmacy automation system, and medication inventory optimization and tracking system; hemodynamic monitoring system; and prefillable drug delivery systems. It also offers specimen and blood collection products; automated blood and tuberculosis culturing, molecular testing, and microorganism identification and drug susceptibility, as well as rapid diagnostic assays, microbiology laboratory automation products, and plated media products; and fluorescence-activated cell sorters and analyzers, antibodies and kits, reagent system, and solution for single-cell gene expression analysis, as well as clinical oncology, immunological, and transplantation diagnostic/monitoring reagents and analyzers. It provides hernia and soft tissue repair, biological and bioresorbable graft, biosurgery, and other surgical products; surgical infection prevention, peripheral intervention, and urology and critical care products. The company has a strategic collaboration with ChemoGLO for the advancement of hazardous drug contamination testing in health care settings to improve the safety of health care workers. The company was founded in 1897 and is headquartered in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey.
Metric Explanations
What each dimension measures and where the thresholds come from.
Gross Profit Margin
Revenue minus cost of goods sold. Graham's ≥40% threshold identifies businesses with durable pricing power. Note: software and financial companies naturally exceed this; retailers and manufacturers rarely reach it due to their cost structures.
Operating Margin
Profit after operating costs before interest and taxes. A consistent ≥15% operating margin signals a business with real competitive advantages. Capital-intensive industries (airlines, auto, commodities) rarely hit this threshold due to their structural cost base — compare within industry for context.
Net Income Margin
Bottom-line profit as a percentage of revenue. The ≥20% target reflects Buffett's preference for highly profitable businesses. Financial engineering (buybacks, tax optimisation) can inflate this temporarily — look for consistency across multiple years rather than a single strong result.
Years to Pay Off Debt
Total Debt ÷ Net Income. Lower = stronger balance sheet. Important caveat: utilities, telecoms, REITs, and infrastructure companies carry large structural debt by design — their bond-like cash flows service it comfortably at ratios that would alarm Graham. Compare within sector.
Working Capital vs Long-Term Debt
Working Capital minus Long-Term Debt. Negative results are common and expected in capital-return-focused businesses like Apple, Domino's, and McDonald's — where aggressive buybacks and dividends intentionally reduce book equity. This does not indicate financial distress in high-FCF businesses.
Working Capital
Current Assets minus Current Liabilities. Negative working capital can be a deliberate efficiency strategy in businesses that collect cash before paying suppliers (retailers, fast food franchises, subscription businesses). Assess alongside free cash flow generation for full context.
Price-to-Book
Market price vs book value per share. Rarely below 1.5x for quality businesses today. Intangible assets (brand, software, patents) don't appear on the balance sheet under accounting rules, making P/B artificially high for asset-light companies like software and consumer brands.
Free Cash Flow
Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures. Buffett's most important metric — cash a business actually generates for its owners after maintaining and growing its asset base. Consistently positive FCF is one of the strongest indicators of a durable, well-run business regardless of accounting profits.
Owner Earnings
Net Income + Depreciation & Amortisation − Capital Expenditures. Buffett's preferred measure of a company's true annual earning power — what could theoretically be distributed to owners without impairing the business. More reliable than reported EPS because it accounts for the capital cost of maintaining the business.
Market Cap $39.7B
Enterprise Value $56.5B
P/E (TTM) 25.13
Dividend Yield 2.95%
Exchange NYSE
Gross Profit 45.7%
Operating Margin 13.3%
Net Margin -6.6%
Sector Healthcare
Industry Medical Instruments & Supplies
Employees 60000
Country United States
Showing Key Metrics
Income Highlights
Metric Q1 2026 Q4 2025 Q4 2024
Gross Profit % 45.7% 45.9% N/A
Operating Margin % 13.3% 12.6% N/A
Net Income % -6.6% 7.3% N/A
Diluted EPS -1.11 1.34 1.04
Balance Sheet Highlights
Metric Q1 2026 Q4 2025 Q4 2024
Total Assets $50.8B $54.8B N/A
Total Debt $17.3B $19.5B N/A
Working Capital -$495M $428M N/A
Years to Pay Debt -55.56 51.15 N/A
Cash Flow Highlights
Metric Q1 2026 Q4 2025 Q4 2024
Free Cash Flow $475M $548M N/A
Owner Earnings $334M $1.1B N/A
CapEx % of Net Income N/A 28.3% N/A
📊 Quarterly mode — Graham Fair Value & 7 Criteria require annual data. Switch to Annual for full analysis.
Quarter vs Same Quarter Last Year
YoY strips seasonality
Revenue Growth (YoY)
Prior year: $4.5B ▲ $4.7B +5.2%
Revenue growth vs same quarter last year strips seasonality. Consistent double-digit growth is a Buffett hallmark.
Gross Margin
Prior year: 41.5% ▲ 45.7% +4.2pp
Buffett: consistent gross margin above 40% signals durable pricing power and competitive moat.
Operating Margin
Prior year: 14.0% ▲ 13.3% -0.7pp
Graham: operating margin reflects true business economics before financing. Trend matters as much as level.
Net Margin
Prior year: 6.9% ▼ -6.6% -13.5pp
Net margin can be distorted by one-time items, tax timing, or interest costs — compare to operating margin for signal quality.
Quarterly Health Checks
3 Graham/Buffett criteria that are valid and reliable on quarterly data
✅ Adequate Size
Graham required scale for resilience. Quarterly revenue × 4 gives an annualised proxy.
$4.7B/qtr (≈$18.9B ann.)
vs > $1.5B annualised revenue
❌ Financial Condition
Current assets vs current liabilities — a real-time liquidity snapshot. Valid and reliable on quarterly data.
0.94x current ratio
vs ≥ 2.0x
✅ Free Cash Flow
Buffett's most important single metric. A positive FCF quarter means the business generated real cash for owners after maintaining its asset base.
$475M
vs Positive
Operating Cash Flow
$600M
Latest quarter · Buffett's cash reality check
ROIC
1.2%
Based on latest annual operating income
Return on Invested Capital — Buffett's preferred measure for asset-light businesses. ROIC > 15% consistently signals a durable competitive advantage (moat). More meaningful than P/B for software, pharma, and consumer brand companies where most value is intangible and off-balance-sheet.
Market Cap / Net Assets
1.6x
Net Assets: $24.1B
⚠️ Net margin compressed 13.5pp vs same quarter last year. Common causes: one-time charges (restructuring, write-downs, legal settlements), tax rate changes, or rising interest expense. Check the income statement notes before drawing conclusions about operating health.
⚠️ Operating income is positive but net income is negative. This typically reflects below-the-line items: interest expense, impairment charges, tax adjustments, or one-time write-offs. The core business may be healthy — operating margin is a better signal of ongoing profitability here.
Peers & Industry
No auto-detected peers for Medical Instruments & Supplies. You can manually compare BDX against any stock using the Compare tool.
"The management of a business is its most important single factor — more important than market position, patents, or financial structure."
— Benjamin Graham
Capital Allocation & Alignment
Insider Ownership
0.41%
Low — management has little skin in the game
Return on Equity (ROE)
-1.3%
Weak — poor returns on equity
Return on Assets (ROA)
-0.6%
Poor — assets are not generating adequate returns
Debt Trend YoY
-11.6% YoY
Debt is declining — management is deleveraging
Leadership Team
Thomas Polen Jr.
President, CEO & Chairman
Age 52
Pay: $3,588,724
Michael Garrison
Executive VP & President of Medical Segment and BioPharma Systems Segments
Age 56
Pay: $1,360,526
Vitor Roque
Executive VP & CFO
Age 42
Denise Russell Fleming
Executive Vice President & Chief Information Officer
Age 54
Top Institutional Holders
Institution % Owned Shares
Blackrock Inc. 9.49% 26,153,411
Vanguard Capital Management LLC 6.71% 18,490,610
Vanguard Portfolio Management LLC 5.56% 15,317,242
State Street Corporation 5.02% 13,822,808
First Eagle Investment Management, LLC 4.33% 11,928,111
Invesco Ltd. 3.69% 10,174,327
T. Rowe Price Investment Management, Inc. 3.52% 9,685,271
Massachusetts Financial Services Co. 3.30% 9,101,454
⚠️ Current ratio below 1 — liquidity risk
Risk Analysis
Beta (Market Risk)
0.28
Low volatility — more stable than the market
Short Interest
3.0% of float
Low short interest — market is not heavily bearish
Debt-to-Equity
0.72x
Conservative balance sheet — low financial risk
Current Ratio
0.94x
Weak liquidity — current liabilities exceed current assets
52-Week Price Range
Low: $127.59 Current: $143.98 High: $187.35
Currently at 27% of 52-week range

Becton, Dickinson and Company (BDX) fundamental analysis — Overall grade C based on profitability, financial health, valuation and cash flow. Graham's Fair Value: N/A (negative EPS). Gross profit margin: 45.7%. Operating margin: 13.3%. Net margin: -6.6%. Market cap: $39.7B. Sector: Healthcare. Industry: Medical Instruments & Supplies. Analysis powered by 360investing — free fundamental stock analysis based on Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett principles.

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