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COO — Deck

The Cooper Companies, Inc. · COO · NASDAQ

The Cooper Companies runs a global soft contact lens oligopolist (CooperVision, two-thirds of sales) alongside a roll-up of women's health and fertility devices (CooperSurgical), earning most of its profit from recurring prescription-locked lens refills.

$64.96
Price
$13.0B
Market cap
$4.2B
Revenue (TTM)
66%
CooperVision share of sales
Listed 1983; split-adjusted $37 a decade ago, compounded to a $116 peak in September 2024, then round-tripped 44% to $65 today as organic growth reset from double-digits to mid-single-digits.
2 · The tension

Bull and bear stand on the same number: 15.4x EV/EBITDA.

  • The multiple. COO trades at 15.4x EV/EBITDA — the first print below the 20-year mean of 17.9x since the 2008-2010 window, and a full five turns below the five-year mean of 20.5x. Model Fair Value is $103 against today's $64.96, a 58% gap.
  • The bull read. A Quality Score of 90, Altman Z of 3.4, and 66% gross margins on a contact-lens oligopoly do not belong below the 20-year average. Reversion to the long-run mean on $1.1B of EBITDA gets the stock to $103 with no growth heroics.
  • The bear read. 15.4x is still a premium for what just became a mid-single-digit grower with 3.8% ROIC — below WACC — and a revenue guide that was walked down three times last year. The 20.5x five-year average was earned when organic was double-digit; that era is over.
The tie-breaker is whether management holds the 4.5-5.5% FY26 organic guide through Q2 and Q3. Two clean prints rescue the reversion case. One more walk-down confirms the re-rating.
3 · Two activists, two plans, one deal clock

The corporate structure is explicitly in play — the board has already ceded seats.

  • Jana Partners. Disclosed a $289M position (3.5M shares, 15% of its portfolio, second-largest holding) and is publicly pushing to sell CooperVision to Bausch+Lomb. Combined soft-lens share would be 36%, just below J&J's 37% — the antitrust argument is already drafted.
  • Browning West. Holds over $500M and wants the opposite trade: sell CooperSurgical, keep a pure-play vision company. On December 23, 2025 Cooper signed a cooperation agreement seating Walt Rosebrough (ex-STERIS CEO, 18% annualized TSR over 14 years), with a commitment to "due and serious consideration" of him as Chair by end of 2026.
  • The counterparty is waiting. Bausch+Lomb CEO Brent Saunders has publicly said a combination with CooperVision would "strengthen competition." Jana's synergy case: $300-500M on $850M of CVI EBITDA. Both activist plans agree the parts are worth more than the whole.
Both activists agree structure is broken. They just disagree which segment goes — a resolution question, not a thesis question.
4 · Money picture — the growth algorithm reset

A decade of levered M&A built $4.3B of goodwill; the cash-return pivot says the deal pipeline stopped clearing the hurdle.

4.0%
FY25 organic growth initial guide was 6-8%
3.8%
ROIC Hologic 15%, Edwards 20%
$796M
FY25 operating cash flow record
$2.2B
3-yr FCF commitment first-ever multi-year guide

Cooper guided FY25 organic growth at 6-8%, walked it down three times, and printed 4%. CooperSurgical fertility — ten straight double-digit quarters through FY23 — printed 1% in Q4 FY25 and 3% in Q1 FY26. The offset is a visible capital-return pivot: $290M of buybacks in FY25 versus $11M of M&A (the first year in a decade dominated by return of capital), a tripled $2B authorization, and a new three-year FCF contract backed by long-term debt falling ~$600M year-over-year. For this to hold, CooperVision organic needs to stabilize above 4% and the 4.5-5.5% FY26 organic guide needs to survive both of the next two prints without a trim.

5 · The insider tape vs the price tape

Ten insider buys, zero sells, the CEO in for $1.49M — and every share is already underwater.

  • The buys. Every named executive (CEO, CFO, COO/GC, President CooperVision, President CooperSurgical) bought on the open market in 2025, joined by four independent directors. Ten purchases, zero sales, $2.52M of personal cash. CEO White put in $683,900 at $68.39 in September and another $808,000 at $80.80 in December.
  • The pay plan confirms the signal. The CEO's "Compensation Actually Paid" collapsed 96% from $39.8M in FY24 to $1.77M in FY25 as total shareholder return dropped from 100 to 67. The plan is penalizing management; they are still buying.
  • The tape disagrees. Stock closed $64.96 on April 23, 2026 — down 44% from the September 2024 peak of $116, at the 11th percentile of its 52-week range, RSI 26, below a declining 200-day. Every insider share bought in 2025 is now in the red. The question the next Form 4 answers: conviction signal or anchor bias?
A third CEO buy below $65 hardens the conviction read. Silence or a 10b5-1 schedule hardens the anchor-bias read.
6 · For & against

Lean cautious two quarters — $103 Fair Value is catching a knife until the FY26 guide holds.

  • For. First sub-20-year-mean EV/EBITDA since the GFC, Fair Value $103 against $65, Quality Score 90 on a 66% gross-margin oligopoly. Reversion alone is a 58% move.
  • For. Dual activist campaign with a director already seated and Bausch+Lomb's CEO on the record; sum-of-parts math (CVI at 18-22x, CSI at 11-14x vs 14x blended today) re-rates without any operational heroics.
  • Against. Three walk-downs of the FY25 organic guide, fertility's double-digit streak broken without acknowledgment, and a 37x P/E that is not yet priced for a 4-5% grower with 3.8% ROIC.
  • Against. The tape is methodical distribution, not capitulation — three earnings gaps in the last twelve months, RSI 26, and insider buys at $68 and $81 already underwater. Reflex bounces in confirmed downtrends fail at the first major moving average.
What flips the view: a clean Q2 FY26 print inside the 4.5-5.5% organic guide with CooperVision back above 5%. That turns mean-reversion from hypothetical into probable and stops the insider cash from looking like an anchor.

Watchlist to re-rate: CooperVision organic above 5% for two straight quarters; any board statement on a formal strategic review or asset sale; the December 2026 refinancing of the $1.5B term loan and the Rosebrough Chair decision window.