LEMAITRE VASCULAR, INC. (LMAT): what the price requires
At today's price, LEMAITRE VASCULAR, INC. (LMAT) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~6.2 years. 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/LMAT
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | LMAT |
| Company | LEMAITRE VASCULAR, INC. |
| Current price | $100.11/sh |
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 | 9.4% |
| Operating margin today | 26.6% |
| Margin compression implied | -17.2pp |
| Must persist for | 6.2y |
| Multiple paid | 37x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 9, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 8.6% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~2 years.
How unusual the bet is: elevated
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.06σ |
| cohort percentile (of 112 peers) | 85 |
| sustained it ~6.2 years at this level | 33% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
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.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 3.05x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 3.40x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.36x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 1.14x | 3 | expensive |
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 8.6%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=18)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $87.54 | 1.14x | yes | FCF base $0.1B, growth 13% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.6%, 6yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $106.34 | 0.94x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 30.6x / 32.6x / 34.6x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $73.76 | 1.36x | yes | P/E 27.89x (blended: static sector reference 24x + trailing (TTM) 37x), scenarios: 23.1x / 27.9x / 32.7x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 20.99x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $29.29 | 3.42x | yes | BV/sh $17.66, ROE (TTM) 15.3%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $37.27 | 2.69x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $74.32 | 1.35x | yes | Rev $0.3B, growth 13% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 6.6x / 8.0x / 9.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $95.20 | 1.05x | yes | EPS $2.72, growth 35% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=1.06 (Fair) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $10.32 | 9.70x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.05B × (1−20%) / WACC 8.6% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $38.12 | 2.63x | yes | BV $17.66 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 15.3% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $32.87 | 3.05x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $2.72 × BVPS $17.66) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $45.50 | 2.20x | yes | EBITDA $0.08B × sector EV/EBITDA 16.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $30.06 | 3.33x | yes | FCF $79.1M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $26.37 | 3.80x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.07B (FCF $0.08B − SBC $0.01B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $87.77 | 1.14x | yes | EPS $2.72 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $5.11 | 19.59x | yes | BV $17.66 × (ROIC 2.5% / WACC 8.6%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $44.51 | 2.25x | yes | Revenue $0.26B × sector P/S 4.0x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $102.00 | 0.98x | yes | EPS $2.72 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $29.41 | 3.40x | yes | EPS $2.72 / 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 cash | $198.4m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -3.72x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -2.97x (net cash) |
| Interest coverage | 12.9x |
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 1.0% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- LeMaitre is a niche vascular-device maker that wins by selling unglamorous products the giants ignore: grafts, valvulotomes, and carotid shunts each posted record sales in Q1 2026, and gross margin reached 72.7%, up 350 basis points on pricing and manufacturing gains.
- The price is the main risk, not the business: only the forward-growth lens reaches today's quote, so an investor is paying for roughly 23% annual operating-income growth to persist against a company that grew organic revenue 10% last quarter.
- What moves the stock next is whether the growth rate holds: management guides to 12% sales growth and 26% EPS growth for 2026, and the Artegraft biologic graft, up 36% worldwide, is the swing factor.
Bull Case
Start with where the price sits against the methods, because for LeMaitre the spread tells a specific story. The asset-value lens, the earnings-power lens, and the peer-multiple lens all land well below today's price; only the forward-growth lens reaches it. That pattern is not a red flag by itself. It is the signature of a durable compounder, a business whose value lives in years of future growth that the static, backward-looking methods structurally cannot capture. The static methods value what LeMaitre has earned; the price values what it is likely to keep earning. The bull case is that the company has earned the right to be read on the forward lens, and the recent results support it.
The evidence is in the margins and the breadth of growth. In Q1 2026 LeMaitre grew sales 11%, with 10% organic, and lifted gross margin 350 basis points to 72.7% on higher pricing and manufacturing efficiency. Operating income rose 41% to $17.8 million, an operating margin of 27%, which is the operating leverage of a business with real pricing power. The growth was not concentrated in one lucky product: grafts, valvulotomes, and carotid shunts each posted record sales, and the Artegraft biologic graft grew 36% worldwide. A company expanding gross margin while growing every major product line and every geography is demonstrating exactly the durability the price pays for.
The structural advantage is the niche itself. LeMaitre sells low-volume, high-margin devices for open vascular surgery, products too small for Medtronic, Boston Scientific, or Abbott to prioritize but essential to the surgeons who use them. That leaves LeMaitre with pricing power and a direct sales force that the giants do not bother to contest line by line, and it lets the company roll up small vascular product lines through acquisition and fold them into an established sales channel. The balance sheet supports the strategy: the company carries net cash, runs interest coverage around 14 times, and funds its bolt-on acquisitions internally. A small company with a clean balance sheet, 70%-plus gross margins, and a defensible niche is the kind of business that compounds quietly for a long time, which is what the forward lens is pricing.
Bear Case
The competitive backdrop is the place to start, because LeMaitre is a small company in a market the giants own. Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and Abbott hold the dominant share of peripheral-vascular devices, and W. L. Gore, B. Braun, and Edwards Lifesciences round out a field of multinationals with R&D budgets and sales forces many times LeMaitre's size. LeMaitre's defense is that it operates in the seams these companies ignore, niche open-surgical products too small to move their needles. That works until it doesn't. The same niches that are too small for a giant to chase today become attractive once they grow, and a single decision by Medtronic or Boston Scientific to enter a product line, or to bundle a competing device into a hospital contract, can compress LeMaitre's pricing power in a category overnight. The moat is real but narrow, and it depends on the giants continuing to look the other way.
That competitive fragility matters because of what the price assumes. At today's quote only the forward-growth lens reaches the price; the asset, earnings-power, and peer-multiple lenses all sit well below it. In plain terms, the price requires LeMaitre to compound operating income at roughly 23% a year for years, against a company that grew organic revenue 10% last quarter and guides to 12% sales growth for the year. There is a gap between the growth the price pays for and the growth the business is delivering, and that gap is the bet. If growth settles into the low double digits rather than the low twenties, the forward lens that currently reaches the price stops reaching it, and a stock supported by only one family of method has nothing else underneath to catch it. The price also sits high relative to where this company's own valuation has typically run, which is the engine flagging that the multiple is stretched even for a quality compounder.
The execution risks compound the valuation risk. LeMaitre grows partly by acquiring small vascular product lines and integrating them, a strategy that works until an acquisition disappoints or a deal is overpaid, and the share count has been drifting modestly higher rather than lower, so growth is not being amplified by buybacks. Roughly a quarter of the gross-margin strength came from pricing, and pricing-led margin gains are harder to repeat than volume-led ones. None of this threatens the balance sheet; LeMaitre carries net cash and ample coverage. The bear case is simpler than a solvency scare: a small-cap priced for two decades of elite compounding is one competitive incursion or one growth disappointment away from losing the only valuation lens that currently supports it.
Valuation
LeMaitre is priced as a durable compounder, and the methods make that explicit. The asset-value lens, the earnings-power lens, and the peer-multiple lens all land well below today's price; only the forward-growth lens reaches it. That is the defining pattern. When just the growth family supports the price, the premium is a bet on durability that the static methods structurally cannot frame, not an error in those methods. They are valuing the company's trailing economics correctly; the market is paying for the years of compounding ahead.
The concrete version of that bet is the growth the price requires. Today's price embeds roughly 23% annual operating-income growth sustained over a long horizon, against a company that earns a 27% operating margin today and grew organic revenue 10% last quarter. The margin is not the question; LeMaitre's profitability is already excellent and improving, with gross margin at 72.7%. The question is the growth rate and how long it lasts. Management guides to 12% sales growth and 26% EPS growth for 2026, so the EPS line can run faster than revenue through margin expansion and operating leverage, but the revenue trajectory still has to bridge a meaningful distance to the pace the price assumes. The peer-multiple lens reads the stock as rich against its medical-device cohort, which fits: this is a high-quality business trading at a high-quality price.
Solvency asks nothing of this name. LeMaitre carries net cash, runs interest coverage around 14 times, and funds its acquisitions internally, so the downside is not a balance-sheet event. The share count drifts modestly higher rather than lower, so unlike many compounders the per-share math is not being helped by buybacks; growth has to come from the business. The valuation leaves a clean question: the company is excellent, and the price already knows it. What an investor underwrites at today's quote is that the compounding the forward lens prices in actually arrives, year after year, in a niche the giants could choose to contest.
Catalysts
The clearest catalyst for LeMaitre is the growth rate itself, because the entire valuation rests on it. In Q1 2026 the company grew sales 11% with 10% organic, expanded gross margin 350 basis points to 72.7%, and grew operating income 41%. Management guides to 12% sales growth and 26% EPS growth for the full year, so each quarterly print is a test of whether the business is tracking toward that guidance or decelerating, and the stock's premium multiple makes it sensitive to even small misses against the growth bar.
The product-level swing factor is Artegraft, the biologic graft that grew 36% worldwide in Q1 2026. Its continued expansion, alongside the record sales in grafts, valvulotomes, and carotid shunts, is what would validate the durable-growth thesis; a stall in the fastest-growing product would pressure the forward lens that supports the price. Geographic expansion is the other lever, with EMEA and APAC posting record sales in the quarter.
The structural watch item is the acquisition pipeline. LeMaitre grows partly by buying small vascular product lines and folding them into its sales channel, so the cadence, price, and integration of those deals is a standing catalyst; a well-priced bolt-on extends the growth runway, while an overpaid or poorly integrated one would dent the compounding story the market is paying for.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Medical devices (consolidated) (reported)
- AORT (ARTIVION, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ATRC (AtriCure, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- PEN (Penumbra, Inc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MMSI (MERIT MEDICAL SYSTEMS INC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- LIVN (LivaNova PLC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- TFX (TELEFLEX INCORPORATED)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- TMDX (TransMedics Group, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- INSP (Inspire Medical Systems, 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
Q1 2026 earnings release · Q1 2026 financial data · peripheral-vascular device market profile, 2026