Key Takeaways
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Bausch + Lomb shares jumped 16% after a third-quarter profit beat and raised full-year guidance.
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Profit is the story: adjusted EBITDA rose 34% on 7% revenue growth.
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Johnson & Johnson's contact lenses grew too, putting the spotlight on Cooper Companies' flat lens sales.
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Debt remains the main risk.
Bausch + Lomb ( BLCO:NYSE )shares jumped 16% today after its third-quarter profit blew past expectations. Adjusted EPS came in at $0.34 against a $0.22 consensus, and revenue rose 7% to $1.375 billion.
Its contact lenses grew too, and so did those of Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ:NYSE ). That makes The Cooper Companies ( COO:NASDAQ ), whose CooperVision lens sales were flat last quarter, stand out.
Profit is doing the heavy lifting
Adjusted EBITDA climbed 34% to $325 million.
Bausch + Lomb raised the midpoint of its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance by $65 million, against just $10 million for revenue.
TIKR's EBITDA margin for the company fell every year from 20.2% in fiscal 2021 to 11.9% in 2025:
MIEBO sales grew 42% to $119 million, LUMIFY 35%, and premium intraocular lenses about 70%.
Estimates should move up
Analysts expected normalized EPS to nearly triple from 2025 to 2028:
Those estimates date to Oct. 16, before a 12-cent beat and a raised EBITDA outlook, so I'd expect them to rise.
At yesterday's close, the stock traded at 17x forward earnings, below its 21x three-year average:
At today's price it's about 19x, still under that average.
TIKR tracks 15 analysts on Bausch + Lomb. How many say "Buy"?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Bausch + Lomb, along with Wall Street's revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Bausch + Lomb's Analyst Ratings
Cooper is the odd one out
J&J's Vision sales rose 4.4% to $1.46 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 27, with contact lenses up 3.5% and surgical vision up 6.8%. Bausch + Lomb's Surgical segment grew 9%. Can J&J's surgical business keep pace when it reports in January?
CooperVision's revenue was flat at $717.0 million in the quarter ended July 31, as Cooper cut U.S. channel inventory, and it guided to organic growth of -2% to 0% this quarter. Today Cooper also said CEO Al White is stepping down.
Is CooperVision's slump just inventory, or lost share? Its fiscal fourth-quarter report in early December should tell us.
The margins are the reason to own it
Debt is the risk: interest expense was $95 million in the quarter, against $155 million of operating income.
Still, margins are doing the work. At a below-average multiple, the stock has room to keep climbing.
Of course, an interim CEO is in charge, and the fourth-quarter report early next year will show whether the gains hold.
So what is Bausch + Lomb stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR's valuation model and see what Bausch + Lomb could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It's free to use.
