Price at publication
$8.79
Enterprise value
$2,168m
TTM revenue
$509.9m
EV / Sales
4.25x
EV / TTM clean EBIT
10.5x
Required revenue CAGR
13.3%
Demonstrated CAGR
6.8% (company FY26 guidance)
Margin (demonstrated − required)
-6.5pp
Screen said
+44.7pp on 49.0% demonstrated
Exit multiple
10.5x (growth-matched, plasma peers)
Implied multiple compression
+0.0x
Terminal EBIT margin
35.0%
WACC
10.0%
12-month target
$10.45 (+18.9%); range $7.91–$12.70
12-1 momentum
-54.5%
Drawdown from ATH
-64.5%
Realised vol (252d)
55.4%
Archetype
COMPOUNDER
Framework
investment-memo Criteria v1.7.0 (2026-07-29)
The screen carried ADMA as a 49.0% compounder with a +44.7pp valuation margin. That growth rate is a FY2022–FY2025 lookback and has not existed since Q2 2025: Q1 2026 revenue grew −0.3% year over year, FY2026 guidance was cut from '>$635m' to $530–560m ten weeks after being explicitly reiterated, and ALL long-term guidance — including the FY2029 >$1.1bn / >$700m Adjusted EBITDA target — was withdrawn on 6 May 2026. The margin mechanism is real but finite: an FDA-approved yield-enhancement process (PAS, April 2025) lifting IG output ~20% per litre, of which FY2026 is explicitly 'our first full year'. Growth is capacity-limited and ADMA has externalised the constraint — the plasma network went from ten centres to seven and the 10-K states 'we do not plan to build additional plasma collection facilities'. Rebuilt on a growth-matched plasma-peer exit multiple, the required 5-year revenue CAGR is 13.3% against company-guided 6.8%: a margin of −6.5pp, versus the screen's +44.7pp.
How to read this
This is an analysis, not a position. The memo scores every Criteria and blocks on none of them. Whether an analysis justifies a position is a question about a particular book — so this page carries no Long, Short, Watchlist or Avoid verdict.
Every Criteria returns PASS / FAIL / INDETERMINATE, and carries a type. BINDING criteria are admission tests for a long-only absolute-return strategy. MEASURED criteria are always scored and stored and never block. A missing input is INDETERMINATE, never FAIL.
Two valuation outputs, over two horizons. The implied-path test (reverse DCF) asks what today's price requires over five years and whether the business has demonstrated it; the 12-month target asks what the name is likely to trade at. Neither replaces the other, and on this name they disagree in sign — which is precisely why both are mandatory. Sensitivity is run over the exit multiple, never over scenario probabilities.
Momentum is entry timing only. It governs when, never whether.
Key findings
- The screen's 49.0% CAGR is a FY2022–FY2025 lookback. Q1 2026 revenue grew −0.3% year over year and the quarterly YoY series ran +78% → +40% → +14% → +12% → +18% → −0.3% across six quarters.
- On 6 May 2026 ADMA cut FY2026 revenue guidance from '>$635m' to $530–560m (Adjusted EBITDA from '>$360m' to $265–300m) and WITHDREW ALL LONG-TERM GUIDANCE — ten weeks after the 25 February 2026 release explicitly said 'Reiterating Previously Provided 2026-2029 Financial Guidance'.
- The mechanism is real and finite. The FDA approved the yield-enhancement PAS in April 2025: +20% IG output from the same plasma. The 10-K states 'Fiscal year 2026 will be our first full year of yield-enhanced production'. It is a one-time level shift, not a growth rate, and no follow-on programme is disclosed.
- Growth is CAPACITY-LIMITED and the capacity has been externalised. ADMA BioCenters went from ten centres to eight to seven; the 10-K states 'At the present time, we do not plan to build additional plasma collection facilities'. ASCENIV needs high-titer RSV plasma 'typically found in less than 10%' of donor samples, now contracted from Grifols and others 'with an escalating price per liter... with a minimum annual price increase every 12 months'.
- FY2025 cash conversion collapsed: net income $146.9m against cash from operations of $50.4m (0.34x), free cash flow $27.8m. Receivables rose $108.4m on revenue growth of $83.7m. Accruals ratio 17.3% — the highest-risk decile.
- DSO went from 38.8 days (Dec 2024) to 103.9 (Dec 2025) to 108.3 (Mar 2026), against customer concentration of 73% of revenue and 87% of receivables in two distributors (BioCare and CuraScript).
- ADMA's own rebuttal of the 24 March 2026 Culper Research short report disclosed distributor inventory of 128 days of ASCENIV coverage at 5 January 2026 — 84 days ABOVE contractual safety stock — falling to 90 and 48 days by 22 March. NO DOLLAR FIGURE IS ASSERTED: the conversion to dollars does not reconcile with reported revenue, and that failure is reported rather than papered over. The Audit Committee's independent review found no improper channel stuffing and no undisclosed related-party transactions; no allegation of impropriety is made or implied here.
- On 2 March 2026 ADMA drew $125.0m on its revolver to fund a $125m accelerated share repurchase at $16.58 — five days after reiterating guidance that was cut 12–17% ten weeks later. That stock is $8.79 today, roughly a 47% mark-to-market loss, and debt went from $72m to $197m in one quarter.
- Q1 2026 operating income of $58.3m includes an $8.0m pre-tax gain on the sale of three plasma centres, booked inside operating income. Clean operating income is $50.3m — a 43.9% margin, not 50.9%. GAAP net income 'grew 68%'; Adjusted net income grew 22%.
- Rebuilt on a growth-matched plasma-peer exit multiple of 10.5x (EBS 8.0x / Kamada 12.7x) rather than the screen's universe-wide 23.3x, the required 5-year revenue CAGR is 13.3% against company-guided 6.8% — a margin of −6.5pp versus the screen's +44.7pp. The screen's 23.3x would require +122% multiple expansion from today's 10.5x.
- Mention-frequency across 13 quarters of ADMA's own earnings releases: 'dislocation', 'trough', 'DSO', 'discount' and 'audit committee/forensic' are ALL first-ever appearances in 2026Q1. 'competiti*', 'demand', 'inventor*', 'pric*', 'temporar*' and 'timing' are all at series highs. 'capacit*' fell to ZERO and 'yield-enhanc*' collapsed to 0.5 per 1,000 words in the quarter its benefit was largest.
- The 12-month target ($10.45, +18.9%) and the implied-path test (FAIL) disagree in sign. That is not a contradiction — it is why valuation.md mandates both. The ownership test is the implied path.
Criteria
| Criteria | Type | Result | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quality | BINDING | FAIL | ROIC 36.5% vs WACC 8.7–10.0% clears comfortably, but the COMPOUNDER standard in criteria.md requires an evidenced mechanism for redeploying capital at that return — 'a compounder that cannot reinvest is a bond'. ADMA has stated it will not reinvest in its binding input (ten plasma centres to seven; 'we do not plan to build additional plasma collection facilities'), capex is $22.6m/yr, and it is returning capital via a $500m buyback part-funded with debt. Separately ACCRUALS FAIL: FY2025 accruals ratio 17.3%, CFO/net income 0.34x, free cash flow $27.8m against $146.9m of net income and $231m of Adjusted EBITDA. |
| Valuation | BINDING | FAIL | Required 5-year revenue CAGR 13.3% (terminal EBIT margin 35.0%, exit multiple 10.5x EBIT, WACC 10.0%, 5 years, revenue base $509.864m TTM, EV $2,168.3m — all held fixed and named) vs company-guided FY2026 growth of +6.8% midpoint. Margin −6.5pp. PASS WITH ARGUMENT was constructed and tested (ASCENIV 20% CAGR with BIVIGAM decaying gets to 14.4%) and rejected: it requires incremental high-titer plasma the company has stated it will not build, sourced instead on contracts with 'a minimum annual price increase every 12 months'. |
| Liquidity | BINDING | PARTIAL — equity PASS, options FAIL | Equity: 63-day median dollar volume $27.5m, 20-day $21.7m. Options chain pulled across all five expiries (2026-08-21 through 2027-02-19): deepest single-strike open interest 2,232 contracts, Jan-2027 $10 call quotes 0.58/1.73 (±50% to mid), $15 call has no bid. No defined-risk structure is fillable at a sensible price. |
| Downside | MEASURED | SCORED — blocks nothing | Permanent-loss case $2.88 (−67%), probability 0.15. Named cause: erosion of ASCENIV's price premium toward the standard-IG level, by exactly the mechanism that took BIVIGAM −54% year over year in the same twelve months and the same industry reset. Going-concern case argued explicitly and DISMISSED: net debt $58.7m, total leverage 0.70x against a 2.50x covenant; Adjusted EBITDA would have to fall ~72% from guidance before the covenant binds. |
| Momentum | MEASURED | SCORED — deeply negative, governs timing only | 12-1 momentum −54.5%; −64.5% from the all-time high of $24.51 on 2025-04-28; 252-day realised volatility 55.4%; beta 0.88 vs SPY with correlation 0.20. |
| Catalyst | MEASURED | SCORED | Q2 2026 results expected early August 2026 — DATE NOT ANNOUNCED, prior Q2 prints 2023-08-09 / 2024-08-08 / 2025-08-06. It is a clean test of management's 'trough revenue baseline' claim against its own statement that the April run-rate is 'in-line with the level of first quarter direct sales'. |
| Consensus | MEASURED | INDETERMINATE | Alpha Vantage 25/day quota exhausted when tested 2026-07-29. No Street consensus obtained. Blocks nothing per criteria.md. Company guidance is used as the near-term base and is labelled as guidance, not consensus, everywhere it appears. |
| Short Mechanism | MEASURED | BOTH CONDITIONS MET — acted on by nothing on a long-only fork | Decelerating growth: +78% → +40% → +14% → +12% → +18% → −0.3% across six quarters. Exhausted margin runway: operating margin already 40.6% clean and already expanded +4.9pp, with the yield step explicitly a first-and-only full year. |
| Peer Spread | MEASURED | SCORED | Named peer Kamada [KMDA], plasma-derived, same end market: FY2025 revenue $180m (+11.8%), EBIT margin 14.4%, EV/EBIT ~12.7x. ADMA at 10.5x is a 17% discount on EBIT and a 2.3x premium on EV/Sales (4.25x vs 1.84x), the difference being 40.6% vs 14.4% EBIT margin. No multiple discount to harvest. |
| Sub-sector | MEASURED | Pharma | Plasma-derived therapies / SMID specialty biologics. SIC 2836. |
Screen reconciliation — discrepancies found
- Shares 231,772,715 is the cover-page BASIC count; diluted weighted-average is 239,955,762 — understates by 8.2m (3.4%). Scale cross-check passes either way: 45,328 ÷ 239,955,762 = $0.189 vs filed diluted EPS $0.19.
- Net cash −$55,431,000 used LongTermDebtNoncurrent ($193,584k) only, omitting the $3,281k current portion. Verified net debt is −$58,712,000.
- Gross margin 57.4% and operating margin 37.5% are FY2025 figures applied against TTM revenue — a mixed-period inconsistency. TTM gross margin is 61.3% and TTM clean operating margin is 40.6%.
- EV/EBIT 10.9x is computed on FY2025 EBIT; on TTM clean EBIT and diluted EV it is 10.5x.
- Exit multiple 23.3x is GROWTH_MATCHED to 49% growth across a 143-name UNIVERSE-WIDE set. No listed plasma-derived peer grows within 37pp of 49%. This single input produces essentially the entire +44.7pp margin.
- Terminal margin 22.9%, capped from ADMA's own 37.5%, is below every relevant reference: ADMA's demonstrated clean TTM margin is 40.6% and the listed plasma peers run 13.5–16.5%.
Sections
Disclosed limitations
- NO STREET CONSENSUS. The Alpha Vantage 25/day quota was exhausted when tested on 2026-07-29. Every forward revenue and EBIT figure is either company guidance or a labelled house extrapolation. Consensus Criteria is INDETERMINATE and blocks nothing.
- The FY2027 leg of the NTM base is a HOUSE EXTRAPOLATION at the FY2026 guided growth rate. No FY2027 guidance exists — it was withdrawn on 2026-05-06. The previously published '>$775m' target is not used.
- Grifols [GRFS] is excluded from the quantitative peer anchor: it files IFRS with no reliably tagged share count or current borrowings in its SEC XBRL, and its EV is dominated by net debt that could not be verified from a primary filing. Its growth only is used, for the bracket test. No Grifols multiple is asserted.
- CSL Ltd is not an SEC filer and is excluded entirely rather than sourced from an unverifiable secondary.
- Kamada's current borrowings are unverified — last tagged at $3.8m (2021-12-31). Treated as effectively debt-free; if material debt exists its EV/EBIT falls, which would LOWER the base exit multiple and worsen the Valuation result.
- Distributor channel-inventory dollars are NOT asserted. The company disclosed coverage DAYS; converting them at ADMA's revenue per day implies underlying ASCENIV demand up ~80% year over year, which reconciles with nothing else. The reconciliation failure is reported as itself informative.
- The Q2 2026 earnings date is NOT ANNOUNCED. The calendar records the three-year pattern (2023-08-09 / 2024-08-08 / 2025-08-06) and says so. No date is fabricated.
- SG-001 is excluded from all valuation. It is preclinical, the IND is not filed, and the company's claimed '$300 to $500 million annual market opportunity' is not underwritten here.
- Mention-frequency uses ADMA's own 8-K Item 2.02 EX-99.1 earnings releases, NOT call transcripts, because the transcript quota was exhausted. The Q&A is absent, and the method demonstrably missed the 4 May 2026 paediatric label approval — recorded as a false negative for the substituted corpus.
- The paediatric label expansion approved 4 May 2026 is real and delivered but UNSIZED — ADMA published no patient-count or revenue estimate and none is invented.
- No Excel workbook was produced. The valuation is a reverse DCF plus a multiple grid, both fully specified and reproducible from scripts/.
- Q4 figures are DERIVED (fiscal year minus the tagged nine-month period); US registrants do not tag Q4. Windows were checked for consecutiveness before summing.
- The 12-1 momentum CROSS-SECTIONAL percentile is INDETERMINATE — the absolute figure (−54.5%) is reported but no universe percentile was computed in this run.