QS Research · Michael Burry's Scion Capital analyst template · 2006
BRUKER CORP (BRKR)
As of 2026-11-08 · 13/15 boxes filled from SEC filings and market data
Conclusion: WATCH
Conviction low · base case +16% · downside -39% · upside +29%
BRKR is a good franchise with a broken GAAP earnings year: TTM to Sep 30, 2026 revenue is $3.51B but EBIT is -$69.8M and net income to common is -$167.3M, so the $61.31 price rests on $244.7M TTM free cash flow, a 2.6% FCF yield, and a margin recovery, not current earnings. The market is not missing the recovery: at 69.4x TTM EV/EBITDA and $11.01B EV, the price already implies $366M-$435M of EBITDA at 25.3x-30.1x, 2.3x-2.7x the $158.7M TTM figure. Q3 2026 non-GAAP operating margin of 16.3%, five straight BSI book-to-bill quarters above 1.0x, and FY26 non-GAAP EPS guidance of $2.10-$2.15 support a base case around $71 (+16%), but the FCF downside ($200M at 3.5% = $37.6, -39%) and upside ($300M at 2.5% = $79.1, +29%) do not meet the long or short rule. Verdict watch: the recovery is real enough to monitor, not cheap enough to own and not expensive enough to short; I use a rerated multiple only because cited FY27 guidance and Q3 non-GAAP margin recovery are catalysts, not because the stock is cheap.
Key numbers
- Share price: $61.31
- Market cap: $9.30B
- Latest financial period: TTM to Sep 30, 2026
- Revenue (TTM): $3.51B
- EV / EBITDA (TTM): 69.4x
- Price / book: 3.79x
The 15 boxes
- ✓ 1. Long-form business notes
Bruker sells high-performance scientific instruments — magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry, chromatography, X-ray, microscopy, metrology and molecular spectroscopy — through four FY2025 reportable segments (BSI BioSpin, BSI CALID, BSI NANO, BEST), versus three reportable segments in FY2020 when BioSpin and CALID were aggregated into BSI Life Science. Revenue compounded from $1.99B in FY2020 to $3.44B in FY2025, but FY2025 was the break year: gross profit fell to $1.58B from $1.65B, operating income to $68.2M from $253.1M, and net income to common was -$22.5M, with operating cash flow down to $134.1M from $251.3M. The portfolio has been reshaped by acquisition toward clinical diagnostics and spatial/single-cell biology, which shows up in amortization of intangibles of $121.2M in FY2025 versus $37.1M in FY2022.
- ✓ 2. Competitive advantage
Bruker competes in all four segments against larger instrument makers — Thermo Fisher, Danaher, Agilent, Shimadzu, JEOL, Oxford Instruments, Waters, Biomerieux, Rigaku — and the FY2025 10-K itself concedes rivals have substantially greater financial, technical and marketing resources. The filing argues an advantage from patent portfolios, applications expertise and in-house manufacture of critical components, but the FY2020-FY2025 record does not show it in the returns: revenue rose every year to $3.44B in FY2025 while operating income fell from $436.9M (FY2023) to $68.2M and net income to common turned negative at -$22.5M. Through FY2025 this reads as a broad but contested franchise with deteriorating pricing power, not a durable moat.
- ✓ 3. 10-Q takeaways
Q3 2026 revenue was $874.0 million, up 1.6% yoy but only 0.7% organically, with acquisitions adding 1.7% and FX a 0.8% drag; the nine-month trend is thinner still (organic -0.3%). The GAAP operating loss of $(91.0) million is entirely explained by a $174.5 million non-cash goodwill impairment in BSI NANO (BSB&CA unit, remaining balance written off), while non-GAAP operating income rose to $142.6 million (16.3% margin, up 400 bps) and non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.56, up 24.4%. Cash generation flipped positive (Q3 operating cash flow $118.2 million vs $(33.2) million; nine-month FCF $37.5 million vs $(163.9) million), and management reconfirmed numeric FY26 organic growth of 1-2% and non-GAAP EPS of $2.10-$2.15.
- ✓ 4. Corporate governance
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 5. Overview of the prior 3 years of 8-K filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 6. Other significant filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 7. Chronology of significant news and events
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 8. Comparables valuation interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 9. Insider trading interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ○ 10. Earnings-call notes
- ✓ 11. Impression of the shareholder letter
Filled; members read this box.
- ○ 12. Scuttlebutt overview
- ✓ 13. Valuation and risk/reward summary
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 14. Current price suppression and potential catalysts
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 15. Conclusions
The call above.
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