Cardinal Health Inc CAH

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$153.57
1.06 | 0.69%
USD | New York Stock Exchange | Prices updated as of May 28, 2025, 3:07 PM EST | BATS BZX Real-Time Price
  • Last Close
    155
  • Sector
    Healthcare
  • Industry
    Medical Distribution
  • Investment Style
    Mid Value
  • Market Cap
    36.5605 Bil
  • Forward Div Yield
    1.65%
  • Trailing Div Yield
    1.64%
  • Price/Sales
    0.13
  • Price/Book
    16.07
  • Beta (5-Year)
    0.66
  • Consensus Forward P/E
    16.05
  • Trailing 12-mo Rev
    222.13

Morningstar's Analysis

Valuation May 01, 2025
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Cardinal Health Earnings: Resilient Demand, Strategic Acquisitions Help Slightly Exceed Expectations
Author Photo
Keonhee Kim
Equity Analyst
Analyst Note | by Keonhee Kim Updated May 01, 2025

Narrow-moat Cardinal Health reported solid third-quarter earnings that came in a touch higher than our expectations. Total sales of $54.9 billion were flat year over year, but up 19% when adjusted for the Optum contract loss. Prescription demand and utilization trends remain resilient despite challenging macro conditions, and the firm also touted its operational excellence. GLP-1s (diabetes and weight-loss) continue to play a key role and contributed to over one third of growth. Solid performance also flowed downward, with all three segments achieving double-digit profit growth and margin expansion on both annual and sequential bases. On mergers and acquisitions, the recent acquisitions of ION and GIA lifted the bottom line, and we are pleased to see Cardinal’s strategic investments in higher-margin areas paying off. Cardinal raised full-year earnings per share guidance to $0.18 at the midpoint, or about 2.2%. This is the third time management raised guidance during the fiscal year, and we are impressed with strong momentum with no signs of slowing. After raising our near-term assumptions and giving Cardinal a bit more credit on margin expansion, we raised our fair value estimate to $125 per share from $116.

Business Strategy and Outlook | by Keonhee Kim Updated May 01, 2025

Cardinal Health is one of three leading domestic wholesalers of branded, generic, and specialty pharmaceutical products. With over $200 billion in annual US drug distribution sales in fiscal 2024, the firm supplies roughly one fourth of the overall market. Its two close competitors are Cencora and McKesson. Together, the three operate as a pharmace

Morningstar Fair Value Estimate
The Morningstar Fair Value Estimate guides investors to the long-term, intrinsic value of a stock, helping them see beyond the present market price.

Show me how fair value is derived (00:41)

Morningstar calculates the fair value estimate of a company based on a projection of how much cash the company will generate in the future. Morningstar analysts create custom industry and company assumptions to feed income statement, balance sheet, and capital investment assumptions into a proprietary discounted cash flow modeling template. Scenario analysis, in-depth competitive advantage analysis, and a variety of other analytical tools are used to augment the discounted cash flow process. The analyst discounts future cash flows using the weighted average of the costs of equity, debt, and preferred stock (and any other funding sources), using expected future proportionate long-term, market-value weights.

The Morningstar Fair Value Estimate is a projection/opinion and not a statement of fact. If Morningstar's base-case assumptions are true the market price will converge on Morningstar's fair value estimate over time, generally within three years. Investments in securities are subject to market and other risks. Past performance of a security may or may not be sustained in the future and is no indication of future performance.

Morningstar Equity Research Methodology

Price vs. Fair Value

 
Price/Fair Value
Total Return %
Index Total Return %
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 YTD
12.44 -17.44 -12.96 -23.37 17.71 9.72 -0.21 53.13 33.73 18.83 31.64
0.69 12.44 21.47 -5.05 31.22 20.90 25.78 -19.43 26.44 24.09 1.07
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