HENRY SCHEIN, INC. (HSIC): what the price requires
At today's price, HENRY SCHEIN, INC. (HSIC) is priced for +5.1% growth. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/HSIC
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | HSIC |
| Company | HENRY SCHEIN, INC. |
| Current price | $85.33/sh |
| Composition | Global Distribution and Value-Added Services 83% / Global Specialty Products 12% / Global Technology 5% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin needed | 3.1% |
| Operating margin today | 5.1% |
| Margin compression implied | -2.0pp |
| Implied growth | 5.1% |
| Multiple paid | 18x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 12, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~7pp.
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~13.8%/yr; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | +0.29σ |
| cohort percentile (of 225 peers) | 36 |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.
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.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 2.04x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 2.38x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.10x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 0.78x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Relative, 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 8.4%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=18)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $109.84 | 0.78x | yes | FCF base $0.5B, growth 6% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.4%, 5yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $110.07 | 0.78x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 9.4x / 11.4x / 13.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $77.63 | 1.10x | yes | P/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 15.1x / 18.0x / 20.9x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 12x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $36.79 | 2.32x | yes | BV/sh $28.14, ROE (TTM) 12.1%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $41.81 | 2.04x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $85.80 | 0.99x | yes | Rev $13.4B, growth 6% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.6x / 0.7x / 0.9x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $39.72 | 2.15x | yes | EPS $3.31, growth 3% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=7.67 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $67.69 | 1.26x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.78B × (1−21%) / WACC 8.4% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $42.83 | 1.99x | yes | BV $28.14 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 12.1% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 7.9%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $45.78 | 1.86x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $3.31 × BVPS $28.14) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $90.46 | 0.94x | yes | EBITDA $0.98B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $30.69 | 2.78x | yes | FCF $445.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $27.24 | 3.13x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.41B (FCF $0.45B − SBC $0.04B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $41.71 | 2.05x | yes | EPS $3.31 × (8.5 + 2×3.3%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $10.69 | 7.98x | yes | BV $28.14 × (ROIC 3.2% / WACC 8.4%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $288.30 | 0.30x | yes | Revenue $13.38B × sector P/S 2.5x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $16.55 | 5.16x | yes | EPS $3.31 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 3.3% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 4.9x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $35.78 | 2.38x | yes | EPS $3.31 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $2.2b |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 4.19x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 3.31x |
| Interest coverage | 4.5x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -4.4% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- Henry Schein is the dominant distributor of dental and medical supplies, but the more interesting shift is its move up the value chain into its own higher-margin Global Specialty Products and Technology lines, which the company says earn "substantially higher gross margin" than the distribution business.
- The clearest risk is execution under pressure: the company is running a $75 million to $100 million restructuring while activist investor Ananym pushes a proxy fight and a possible sale of the medical-distribution arm.
- Watch the second half of 2026, when management has said its value-creation and restructuring savings are weighted, and whether dental momentum (up 9.0% in the first quarter) holds.
Bull Case
Henry Schein is a mature company in a defensive niche, and the right way to read its numbers is as a slow-moving distribution franchise repositioning toward higher-margin businesses, not as a growth story. That framing matters because the consolidated margin understates the direction of travel. The company's own filing is explicit that gross margin "vary between our segments" and that it "realize[s] substantially higher gross margin from products we develop and manufacture within our Global Specialty Products segment compared to products distributed". Global Specialty Products net sales rose 6.7% for the year, and every dollar of mix shift toward owned specialty and technology lifts the blended margin without needing the top line to accelerate.
The core distribution business is recovering and compounding in the part that matters. In the first quarter, global dental distribution sales rose 6.1%, with Global Dental up 9.0%, offsetting softer medical demand. Dental supply distribution is the kind of recurring, consumable demand that does not disappear in a downturn: practices keep ordering the materials they use every day. On top of that, the company is taking out cost, with a restructuring plan targeting $75 million to $100 million in annual savings, weighted to the second half of 2026.
Capital allocation reinforces the maturity thesis. The share count has fallen at roughly 4% a year, direct evidence of buyback deployment showing up where it cannot be faked, and management has guided to total sales growth of 3% to 5% with margin expansion. The presence of an activist and an expanded KKR position with board seats adds a second source of pressure toward the same goal: sharper capital discipline and a cleaner portfolio. The bull case is a steady distributor with a recurring demand base, a margin-mix tailwind, and outside shareholders pushing management to harvest it.
Bear Case
The variable with the most leverage on Henry Schein is discretionary healthcare demand, and the price does not fully reflect how exposed the distribution model is to it. Dental and medical procedures are deferrable; when households tighten, elective dentistry slips, and a distributor with thin per-unit margins feels it through volume rather than price. Global medical grew just 1.7% in the first quarter against dental's 9.0%, a reminder that the segments do not move together and that the weaker one is the one an activist wants sold. A macro slowdown in elective procedures would pressure the volume the whole distribution engine runs on.
The governance and execution risk is unusually acute right now. Activist Ananym Capital is preparing a proxy fight, seeking to nominate up to six directors and pressing for cost cuts, succession planning, and a sale of the medical-distribution business, arguing the moves could lift the share price meaningfully. Activist campaigns can unlock value, but a contested board, a CEO-succession question, and a $75 million to $100 million restructuring all running at once is a lot of organizational disruption layered on a business still completing its recovery from the 2023 cyberattack that took systems offline for weeks. Each of those is manageable alone; together they raise the odds of an execution stumble in a year management has already back-loaded.
The valuation reflects a business priced for steady, not spectacular, results, which leaves little room for disappointment. On asset value and on earnings power, the price already sits above where the methods land; only the peer-multiple and growth-DCF lenses reach it, and they do so by crediting modest forward growth and the margin-mix improvement. At roughly 17 times operating income, the price embeds operating growth of around 3.6% a year, which is within what the company has delivered but assumes the restructuring lands and the activist disruption does not derail it. Net debt of about $2.2 billion against trailing operating income leaves leverage near three-and-a-third times pre-tax operating income with interest coverage around four times, comfortable in a steady year and tighter if elective demand softens while the restructuring costs run.
Valuation
Today's price works out to roughly 17 times company-wide operating income, which inverts to operating growth of about 3.6% a year over a five-year stage. Read that as a direction rather than a precise figure, but it is a telling one: the price is not asking for heroics. It asks for steady low-single-digit operating growth, which is within what this distributor has historically delivered and broadly in line with management's own 3% to 5% sales-growth guidance. This is a price set on continuation, not transformation.
The methods disagree in the pattern typical of a mature, asset-light distributor. The asset-value and earnings-power lenses read the price as full on what the company earns today, because a distribution business carries little book value relative to its market price and capitalizing current earnings without growth lands below the price. The peer-multiple and growth-DCF lenses reach today's level by crediting the modest forward growth and the ongoing shift toward higher-margin specialty and technology products. That split says the price is a reasonable bet on continuation plus a margin-mix tailwind, not a stretch beyond what standard methods support, with the relative-multiple lens landing essentially at the price.
Solvency is a supporting consideration rather than the crux. Net debt of about $2.2 billion sits at a bit over three times pre-tax operating income, with interest coverage around four times and a share count that has been shrinking, the profile of a cash-generative business returning capital rather than one under strain. The downside is bounded less by the balance sheet than by demand: a slowdown in elective dental and medical procedures would compress the volume the distribution model depends on, and that, more than any leverage concern, is what the price has to be right about. The activist push and the restructuring are the swing factors on whether the steady-continuation case improves from here or merely holds.
Catalysts
The defining near-term catalyst is the second half of 2026, by management's own framing. The company has said benefits from its value-creation programs and the $75 million to $100 million restructuring are weighted toward the back half of the year, with stronger earnings performance expected then. That makes the mid-year prints a test of whether the savings show up on schedule, against full-year guidance of 3% to 5% total sales growth. Dental momentum, up 9.0% in the first quarter, is the line to watch for whether the recovery and share gains are durable.
The governance situation is the other live catalyst and could move faster. Ananym Capital is preparing a proxy fight, nominating up to six directors and pushing for cost cuts and a potential sale of the medical-distribution business, while KKR has expanded its stake and taken board seats. Any resolution, a settlement, a board refresh, or a decision to explore a medical-distribution divestiture, would directly reshape the portfolio and the capital-allocation story. The contest gives the next several months an event-driven character on top of the operating recovery.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Global Distribution and Value-Added Services (reported)
- MCK (McKESSON CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- CAH (Cardinal Health, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- COR (CENCORA, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Global Specialty Products (reported)
- XRAY (DENTSPLY SIRONA Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ALGN (ALIGN TECHNOLOGY, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- STE (STERIS plc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GMED (GLOBUS MEDICAL, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ATEC (Alphatec Holdings, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SNN (Smith & Nephew plc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Global Technology (reported)
- VEEV (Veeva Systems Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- DOCS (Doximity, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- EVCM (EverCommerce Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
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.
- 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.
Sources
company materials and activist filings, 2026 · Q1 FY2026 results, May 2026 · company FY2025 10-K · company materials, 2026 · company FY2025 guidance, 2026 · activist filings, 2026 · activist and PE filings, 2026