Fortive Corp (FTV): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $59.69, Fortive Corp (FTV) is priced for +16.8% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-26.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Exported: 2026-08-31 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/FTV

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 7.9% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)

Valuation X-Ray

Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 7.6%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=12)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

• Fortive is a smaller company than it was a year ago: the Precision Technologies businesses were distributed to shareholders as Ralliant on June 28, 2025, leaving industrial instruments and software at about seven tenths of revenue and healthcare sterilization and workflow tools at the rest.
• Capital return is the loudest signal in the numbers: 9 million shares were retired in the March quarter for 500 million dollars, roughly 3% of the diluted count, taking total repurchases since the separation to 1.8 billion dollars.
• The healthcare segment is where the improvement plan gets tested. It earned a 10.0% operating margin in the March quarter against 25.1% in the industrial segment, and closed 280 basis points of that gap year over year.

Bull Case

The market appears to be paying for a growth company. The numbers describe something else, and the something else is arguably better. Core revenue grew 5.3% in the March quarter, which is respectable and not thrilling. What is thrilling, in the quiet way that compounds, is the denominator. Common shares outstanding have gone from 350.7 million at the end of 2023 to 305.6 million on April 3, 2026, and 9 million of that reduction happened in the March quarter alone for 500 million dollars. Total repurchases since the separation reached 1.8 billion dollars across three quarters. Against a company valued near 19.5 billion dollars, that is a meaningful fraction of the equity retired in under a year.

Buybacks at that pace are only sensible if the underlying business throws off cash reliably, and this one does. Trailing free cash flow of 965.7 million dollars sits above trailing operating profit, which happens when depreciation and amortization of acquired intangibles exceed what the business actually needs to spend on plant. Fortive is largely a software and instrument business now, and software does not need factories.

The industrial segment is the engine and it is a good one. Intelligent Operating Solutions earned a 25.1% GAAP operating margin on 743 million dollars of revenue in the March quarter, with core revenue up 5.2%. That is the profitability of a business selling tools and workflow software that customers embed in their own operating procedures. The 10-K describes the revenue that follows from that embedding: software and support contracts that the company expects to fulfil approximately 75 percent within the next two years, approximately 90 percent within the next three years, and substantially all within four years. Contracted revenue arriving over four years is not a backlog in the construction sense. It is a subscription base with a stated shape.

Healthcare is the improvement story, and it moved. Advanced Healthcare Solutions lifted its GAAP operating margin to 10.0% from 7.2% in the year-ago quarter, 280 basis points in a single year, on core revenue growth of 5.8%. The brands doing that work are named in the 10-K: ADVANCED STERILIZATION PRODUCTS "ASP", CENSIS, FLUKE BIOMEDICAL, LANDAUER, and PROVATION. Sterilization consumables and instrument-tracking software sit inside hospital workflows where switching costs are procedural rather than commercial, which is the harder kind to overcome.

Management has been unusually explicit about what it is doing with all of this. The 10-K sets out its strategy in three parts: The Fortive Accelerated strategy is built on three pillars: profitable organic growth acceleration powered by the amplified Fortive Business System (FBS), disciplined capital allocation, and a commitment to building investor trust. Two of the three are measurable from the outside, and both have moved in the right direction since the separation.

The bear will say the growth rate does not support the valuation, and on a pure revenue reading that is fair. The counter is arithmetic rather than rhetoric: a business growing revenue in the mid single digits while shrinking its share count several percent a year produces per-share growth well above its top line, and it does so without needing a single new end market to cooperate.

Bear Case

Put Fortive next to the companies it wants to be compared with and it is at the bottom of the table. ROP converts 28.1% of an 8.12 billion dollar revenue base into operating profit while growing 12.1%. VLTO converts 23.1% of 5.59 billion dollars while growing 5.9%. TDY runs 19.0% and KEYS 18.2%, the latter growing 19.2%. Fortive's consolidated operating margin over the last four quarters was 17.6%. In healthcare the comparison is no kinder: STE earns 18.6% and GMED 17.2% while growing 23.5%, against the 10.0% Fortive's healthcare segment managed in the March quarter. These are not distant competitors. They are the diversified industrial-technology and medical-workflow companies that set the multiple Fortive is measured by, and on the operating line they are ahead.

The growth number also deserves a closer look than the headline gives it. Reported revenue rose 7.7% in the March quarter, core revenue 5.3%, and the company itself attributes 150 basis points of that to additional selling days in the period. Strip the calendar and the underlying pace is closer to the high threes. That is a perfectly acceptable rate for an industrial. It is a long way from what the market value asks for, which is operating profit compounding near 18.9% a year over a five-year stage. Of comparable fast-growers, roughly 39% sustained that kind of pace for about five years, and Fortive's own recent record does not obviously put it in that group.

The gap between the price and the static methods is correspondingly wide. The earnings-power approaches, which capitalize what the business earns today with no growth credited, sit under the market value by a premium of roughly 261%. Peer multiples sit under by about 84%. The asset-value approaches land far under as well. Only the cash-flow projections arrive near the price, and they get there by extending today's cash generation forward at a rate the reported top line has not yet produced.

Then there is the structural question about what this company is. The 10-K lays out the pattern without editorial: in 2018, we split-off most of our automation and specialty platform in a Reverse Morris Trust transaction with Altra Industrial Motion Corp. and, in 2020 and 2025, we spun-off our former Industrial Technologies segment and our former Precision Technologies segment, respectively. These transactions pose risks and challenges that could negatively impact our business. Three separations in seven years is a portfolio being rearranged repeatedly. The 2025 separation alone cost 112 million dollars in transaction expenses. Each round leaves a smaller company carrying the corporate overhead of a larger one, which is one plausible reading of why the consolidated margin sits below both of the segments that produce it.

Financing is the last piece, and it just got more expensive. On May 14, 2026 the company issued 600 million dollars of 4.750% notes due 2031 and 500 million dollars of 5.250% notes due 2036, with proceeds earmarked in part for repaying 3.150% senior notes maturing June 15, 2026. Roughly a percentage point and a half more on every dollar refinanced is a permanent reduction in what reaches shareholders, and net borrowings sit at about 4.2 times operating profit. A buyback funded partly by rolling low-coupon paper into high-coupon paper is a different transaction from one funded out of surplus cash.

Valuation

Two figures sit awkwardly beside each other. The market values the business near 30 times company-wide operating income. Core revenue grew 5.3% last quarter. Turn the first into an assumption and it asks for operating profit to compound near 18.9% a year across a five-year stage, discounted at 8.0% with 4% terminal growth. Treat that rate as a direction and not a measurement, because the arithmetic is unusually sensitive here: a single percentage point of movement in the cost of capital shifts the implied growth rate by about 8.5 points. What survives the imprecision is the shape of the demand, and the shape is that today's price wants growth several times the rate the top line is currently delivering.

The methods reflect that. The earnings-power approaches, which capitalize current earning power with no growth assumed, sit under the market value by a premium of roughly 261%. Peer multiples sit under by about 84%, and the asset-value approaches land further under still. The cash-flow projections are the only frames that arrive close, and the reason is visible in how they are built: they carry today's free cash flow forward and apply an exit multiple held at today's level. That is a coherent way to value a business whose cash generation is durable. It is also a construction that assumes the market's current opinion of the company is the right terminal opinion.

Where this gets genuinely interesting is that the growth the price wants does not have to come from revenue. Trailing free cash flow was 965.7 million dollars against a company valued near 19.5 billion dollars, and management has been spending that cash on its own shares at scale. Repurchases retired 9 million shares in the March quarter for 500 million dollars, and 1.8 billion dollars across the three quarters since the separation. Common shares outstanding went from 350.7 million at the end of 2023 to 305.6 million on April 3, 2026. Per-share growth and company growth are not the same number, and here the difference is large.

Cohort position sits in the upper half of the peer multiple range, which is the harder half to defend when the operating line does not lead the group. ROP earns a 28.1% operating margin while growing 12.1%, VLTO 23.1% while growing 5.9%, TRMB 17.3% while growing 3.2%. Fortive's own trailing conversion was 17.6%. Segment detail explains part of it: the industrial segment ran a 25.1% operating margin in the March quarter, healthcare 10.0%. The consolidated figure is dragged by mix and by corporate cost, not by a broken business.

Solvency neither rescues nor threatens the case. Net debt of about 3,133 million dollars runs at roughly 4.2 times operating profit, with 356.1 million dollars of liquid resources on hand and trailing interest expense near 120 million dollars set against trailing operating profit of 746.6 million dollars. The cost of that debt is rising as older paper matures into new coupons. What the buyer is exposed to, then, is not a balance sheet event. It is the question of whether a mid-single-digit grower buying back several percent of itself a year can produce the compounding that a multiple near 30 times operating income has already been paid for.

Catalysts

The March-quarter report, released April 30, 2026, was the third since the Ralliant separation and the first that let the remaining company be judged on its own. Revenue of 1,069 million dollars was up 7.7% reported and 5.3% on a core basis, with 150 basis points of that attributed to extra selling days. GAAP net earnings of 136 million dollars rose 21.1%, GAAP diluted earnings per share reached $0.44 against $0.33, operating cash flow was 220 million dollars, and free cash flow 194 million. Segment detail showed the industrial business at a 25.1% operating margin and healthcare at 10.0%, the latter up 280 basis points year over year.

Guidance was reaffirmed rather than raised, with management saying the full-year adjusted earnings-per-share range of $2.90 to $3.00 is currently trending toward the upper half. That is the company's own adjusted measure and it excludes amortization of acquired intangibles among other items, so it sits well above the GAAP figure. The July print will show whether the upper-half language survives a quarter without the selling-day help.

Two financing events since then are worth noting together. On May 14, 2026 Fortive completed an offering of 600 million dollars of 4.750% notes due 2031 and 500 million dollars of 5.250% notes due 2036, with proceeds intended partly to repay 3.150% senior notes maturing June 15, 2026. Around July 20, 2026 the company filed an automatic mixed securities shelf, which keeps the option open to issue further securities without a fresh registration. Neither is a distress signal; together they describe a company that intends to keep funding buybacks and acquisitions from the capital markets rather than solely from operating cash.

Product and partnership announcements have been steady in the background. Advanced Sterilization Products took a majority stake in UV Smart, a high-level disinfection technology business, in late June 2026, and Accruent announced a partnership with PowerX around July 21, 2026 covering telecom infrastructure energy management. Truist raised its price target to $67 from $61 while keeping a Hold rating in early July 2026. Second-quarter results are scheduled for July 29, 2026.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Intelligent Operating Solutions (reported)

• KEYS (KEYSIGHT TECHNOLOGIES, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …software applications to deliver measurements tailored to a specific application. For example, customers may purchase a signal analyzer equipped with a software application to analyze specific signals such as those used in satellite communications. • Software application solutions unify multiple instruments into an…
• FY2025 10-K: …portfolio and computer-aided engineering capabilities, enabling customers to take innovative designs to market faster. These factors, among others, contributed to a purchase price in excess of the estimated fair value of OSG's net identifiable assets acquired (see summary of net assets below), and, as a result, we…
• TDY (TELEDYNE TECHNOLOGIES INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …systems engineering and integration, advanced technology application, software development and manufacturing solutions for defense, space, environmental and energy applications. Business segment results include net sales and operating income by segment but excludes corporate office expenses. Corporate expense…
• FY2025 10-K: …that comprise the Instrumentation segment. Marine Instrumentation We offer a variety of products designed for use in harsh underwater environments, instruments that measure currents and other physical properties in the water column, systems that create acoustic images of objects beneath the water's surface, including…
• ST (SENSATA TECHNOLOGIES HOLDING PLC)
• FY2025 10-K: …solutions, electrical protection components and systems, and other products. Our sensors are used by our customers to translate a physical parameter, such as pressure, temperature, position, or location of an object, into electronic signals that our customers' products and solutions can act upon. Our electrical…
• FY2025 10-K: …customers' products and solutions can act upon. Our electrical protection portfolio (which includes both components and systems) is composed of various switches, fuses, inverters, energy storage systems, high-voltage distribution units, controllers, and software, and includes high-voltage contactors and other…
• MIR (Mirion Technologies, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …efficiency of radiation safety programs at practitioner sites. Key product lines include the innovative Instadose dosimetry platform, optically stimulated luminescence, or OSL, dosimeters, and our range of eye, finger, and extremity dosimeters that integrate with our Dose Central data platform. Our Competitive…
• FY2025 10-K: …needs and requirements. Cross pollination of technologies between end markets also drives new growth opportunities as we leverage our Medical distribution channels to market and sell Nuclear & Safety products. In our Nuclear & Safety segment, supporting the development of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs)…
• RVTY (REVVITY, INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …Signals Image Artist™, SMARTpool ® , SMARTvector ™ , Spark PLUS™, Spectrum™, TotalSeq™, Tri-Carb ® , Ultra-LEAF™, VariSpec™, Vega ® , VesselVue ® , ViaStain™, VICTOR Nivo ® , Western Lightning ™ , Wizard2 ® , and Zephyr ® . Diagnostics Segment We offer instruments, reagents, assay platforms and software to hospitals,…
• FY2025 10-K: …to EUROLabOffice™4.0 laboratory management software, which offers automatically generated result proposals from images captured with the all-in-one IFA instrument UNIQO 160 as well as from the EUROPattern and EUROPattern Microscope Live automated microscopes. ◦ The EUROLabWorkstation™ IFA and EUROLabWorkstation TM…
• TRMB (TRIMBLE INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …growth, profitability, and market leadership. We serve multi-trillion-dollar global industries that operate in demanding environments with technology adoption in the earlier phases relative to other industries. With the growth in mobile and cloud computing capabilities, increasing technological know-how of end users,…
• FY2025 10-K: …utilities, and transportation. We exist to empower our customers: asset owners; general and specialty contractors; architects, engineers, and designers; surveyors; energy and utility companies; transportation shippers and carriers; as well as state, federal, and municipal governments. Productivity and sustainability…
• VLTO (VERALTO CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …are designed to address higher-value, design-oriented portions of the packaging management value chain, such as digital asset management ("DAM"), marketing resource management ("MRM") and product information management ("PIM"), that help our customers maximize efficiency of operations while generating an attractive…
• FY2025 10-K: On Board ("FOB") Shipping Point, or equivalent, and the Company records revenue for these product sales upon transfer of control to the customer, which may occur at shipment. For those FOB Shipping Point arrangements where risk of loss is not transferred until delivery, the Company transfers control and records…
• ROP (ROPER TECHNOLOGIES INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …56.7% of our total net revenues. Below is a description of the products offered by businesses that comprise the Application Software segment: Aderant - comprehensive management software and AI-enabled solutions for law and other professional services firms, including business development, calendar/docket matter…
• FY2025 10-K: . Roper has a proven, long-term, successful track record of compounding cash flow and increasing shareholder value. We operate market leading businesses that design and develop vertical software and technology enabled products for a variety of defensible niche markets. We pursue consistent and sustainable growth in…

Advanced Healthcare Solutions (reported)

• STE (STERIS plc)
• FY2025 10-K: …for performance assessment and resource allocation. The CEO regularly receives discrete financial information about each reportable segment and uses this information to assess performance and allocate resources. The accounting policies of the reportable segments are the same as those described in Note 1 to our…
• FY2025 10-K: …maintain, upgrade, repair, and troubleshoot capital equipment throughout the world. We offer various preventive maintenance programs and repair services to support the effective operation of capital equipment over its lifetime. Our Healthcare segment also provides comprehensive instrument, devices, and endoscope…
• BDX (BECTON DICKINSON & CO)
• FY2025 10-K: …with a focus on positive impact to all stakeholders-customers, patients, employees, shareholders and communities; • Cultivating an inclusive work environment that welcomes and celebrates diverse backgrounds and perspectives; • Growing and enabling talent through training, development and reskilling strategies; and •…
• FY2025 10-K: Solutions, and Biosciences units, some contracts also contain minimum purchase commitments of reagents or other consumables and the future sales of these consumables represent additional unsatisfied performance obligations of the Company. The revenue attributable to the unsatisfied minimum purchase commitment-related…
• BAX (BAXTER INTERNATIONAL INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …the ship and installation hold on Novum LVP and lower demand in our IV Solutions business in the U.S. as customers continued 36 fluid conservation practices embedded with clinical practice changes. This decline was partially offset by one-time pricing benefits and price increases in certain products globally. The…
• FY2025 10-K: …Products We currently manage our global operations based on three reportable segments: Medical Products & Therapies, Healthcare Systems & Technologies and Pharmaceuticals. The Medical Products & Therapies segment includes sales of our sterile IV solutions, infusion systems, administration sets, parenteral nutrition…
• MMSI (MERIT MEDICAL SYSTEMS INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …("Teleflex"), Cook Medical Incorporated ("Cook Medical"), Medtronic plc ("Medtronic"), Boston Scientific Corporation ("Boston Scientific"), and Becton, Dickinson and Company ("BD"). Our primary competitors in our cardiac intervention market are BD, Teleflex, Medtronic, Abbott Laboratories, Terumo Corporation, Edwards…
• FY2025 10-K: …rhythm management; interventional pulmonology; interventional nephrology; orthopedic spine surgery; interventional oncology; pain management; breast cancer surgery; outpatient access centers; intensive care; imaging; and interventional gastroenterology. According to statistics published by the World Health…
• ICUI (ICU MEDICAL INC/DE)
• FY2025 10-K: …health record ("EHR"), asset tracking systems, and alarm notification platforms to further enhance infusion safety and efficiency. • PharmGuard™ medication safety software for Medfusion 4000 syringe and CADD-Solis™ pumps allows for customized drug libraries to support the standardization of protocols for medication…
• FY2025 10-K: …Containers and Pour Bottle Options. Hemodynamic Monitoring Our Hemodynamic Monitoring products are designed to help clinicians get accurate real-time access to patients' hemodynamic and cardiac status with an extensive portfolio of monitoring systems and advanced sensors & catheters. Measurements provided by our…
• GMED (GLOBUS MEDICAL, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …introduced many products, including 9 products in 2025, designed for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. Given our robust product portfolio of unique and differentiated products, as well as the numerous disruptive products in various stages of development, we believe we are well positioned for growth in the…
• FY2025 10-K: 0.001 par value per share, was cancelled and converted into the right to receive cash in an amount equal to $5.85 per share of common stock of Nevro, without interest and subject to any applicable withholding taxes. Product & Service Categories While we group our revenue into two categories, Musculoskeletal Solutions…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.