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National Healthcare

NHC on NYSEAmerican. National Healthcare sells nursing home and senior care services to older people. Market value $3.6bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Good business, but not cheap right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See cheaper Health care stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
4.1%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $4.06 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
24.7×full

You pay 24.7 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
6.8%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 7 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 71 of 100. Price score: 54 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$230.37 a share, 98% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $116.42 to $239.29.

Dividend: 1.1% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.0
-0.0
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$1.1bn$1.1bn$1.1bn$1.3bn$1.5bn
Operating margin
4.7%2.9%5.0%6.9%8.5%
Debt to equity
n/an/a0.000.140.04
Shares outstanding
0.02bn0.02bn0.02bn0.02bn0.02bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive4 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.04× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 8.1% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $408 million last quarter, up 9% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $40 million, up 70% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 9 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 8 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $147 million, up from $119 million.
  • 2% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • It has $39 million more cash than debt, up from $992,000 a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$340m
December 2024$369m
March 2025$374m
June 2025$375m
September 2025$383m
December 2025$387m
March 2026$382m
June 2026$408m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$43m
December 2024$6m
March 2025$32m
June 2025$24m
September 2025$39m
December 2025$25m
March 2026$36m
June 2026$40m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
26 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
5 November 2026

Who owns it

1 long-term investor we follow owns it, unchanged from 1 last quarter. 248 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

4 investors own more than 5%.

  • BlackRock, Inc.
    Passive investor
    11.6%
    Since 30 September 2025
  • Morgan Stanley
    Passive investor
    at least 7.1%
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 31 December 2025
  • 5.1%
    Since 31 March 2026
  • First Trust Portfolios L.P.
    Passive investor
    at least 5.1%
    (filed with 2 related holders)
    Since 30 June 2026
  • The Vanguard Group
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 13 March 2026

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

In the last 12 months, 1 insider bought $174,863 of shares on the open market. 9 sold $11m.

  • Dodson Vicki L
    Sr.VP Patient Srvcs
    Sold
    Date
    22 September 2026
    Shares
    4,834
    Price
    $225.00
    Value
    $1m
  • KIDD BRIAN F
    SVP, CFO
    Sold
    Date
    11 September 2026
    Shares
    6,813
    Price
    $225.70
    Value
    $2m
  • McCreary Josh A
    Senior VP & General Counsel
    Sold
    Date
    10 September 2026
    Shares
    2,719
    Price
    $224.23
    Value
    $609,669
  • FLATT BEN ANDERSON SR
    Senior VP & CIO
    Sold
    Date
    28 August 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $222.50
    Value
    $222,500
  • FLATT BEN ANDERSON SR
    Senior VP & CIO
    Sold
    Date
    25 August 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $227.00
    Value
    $227,000
  • Gifford David R.
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    25 August 2026
    Shares
    1,779
    Price
    $225.42
    Value
    $401,022
  • FLATT BEN ANDERSON SR
    Senior VP & CIO
    Sold
    Date
    20 August 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $237.00
    Value
    $237,000
  • FLATT BEN ANDERSON SR
    Senior VP & CIO
    Sold
    Date
    19 August 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $237.18
    Value
    $237,180
  • Flatt Stephen Fowler
    CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    19 August 2026
    Shares
    1,500
    Price
    $237.08
    Value
    $355,620
  • FLATT BEN ANDERSON SR
    Senior VP & CIO
    Sold
    Date
    17 August 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $226.00
    Value
    $226,000

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the serious warning signs we check for were found. 1 thing worth knowing.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 26 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 6 Aug 2026 and 10 later 8-Ks.

  • Changed auditor

    Worth knowing

    The company changed its auditor (the firm that checks its books) in the last two years.

    “The Company notified EY on April 3, 2025, that it would be dismissed as the Company’s independent registered public accounting firm, effective as of April 3, 2025.”

    From an 8-K filed 8 April 2025: Change of auditor. Read it in the filing

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.