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LHC Group (LHCG) Stock Overview

LHC Group, Inc., a health care provider, specializes in the post-acute continuum of care primarily for Medicare beneficiaries in the United States. More details

LHCG fundamental analysis
Snowflake Score
Valuation	0/6
Future Growth	4/6
Past Performance	2/6
Financial Health	2/6
Dividends	0/6

Rewards

Earnings are forecast to grow 37.23% per year

Risk Analysis

Debt is not well covered by operating cash flow

Profit margins (1.7%) are lower than last year (5.2%)

LHCG Community Fair Values

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LHC Group, Inc. Competitors

Price History & Performance

Summary of share price highs, lows and changes for LHC Group
Historical stock prices
Current Share Price	US$169.81
52 Week High	US$169.84
52 Week Low	US$115.32
Beta	0.42
1 Month Change	3.76%
3 Month Change	0.91%
1 Year Change	32.12%
3 Year Change	30.61%
5 Year Change	178.06%
Change since IPO	893.04%

Recent updates

Seeking Alpha • Aug 03

LHC Group GAAP EPS of $0.35 misses by $0.95, revenue of $576.2M misses by $29.82M

LHC Group press release (NASDAQ:LHCG): Q2 GAAP EPS of $0.35 misses by $0.95. Revenue of $576.2M (+5.6% Y/Y) misses by $29.82M.

Seeking Alpha • Jul 19

LHC Group: UnitedHealth Merger Is Worth Playing

UnitedHealth’s ongoing acquisition of LHC Group is an interesting merger arbitrage setup, potentially offering an annualized return of 10%. The spread has recently widened as the transaction has attracted the FTC’s attention. The merger still seems likely to close - both companies have a low overlap, the home healthcare market is highly fragmented and the Humana-Kindred merger is a closely comparable transaction. The main risks are antitrust concerns over vertical integration and legal challenges to UnitedHealth’s ongoing merger with Change Healthcare. This is one of the ongoing large-cap merger arbitrage cases where the spread has recently widened. Healthcare and insurance giant UnitedHealth Group (UNH) is buying in-home healthcare company LHC Group (LHCG) at $170 per share. Board/shareholder approvals are already in-the-pocket. The only remaining hurdle is antitrust approval. Until recently, the market was not pricing in any regulatory risk as the spread was around 2%. In June, however, the merger received a second information request from the FTC. Since the news, the spread has jumped and is currently at 5%. In early July, rumors appeared that the FTC’s probe is focused on workers’ pay. Regulatory investigation is currently ongoing and the FTC will have 30 days to finish the review once the companies submit all the required information. Red dot represents FTC’s second request date. Yellow dot is where rumors appeared that FTC’s request is focused on labor pay. FTC’s inquiry comes in light of several industry developments. Firstly, UNH’s other ongoing $13bn merger with Change Healthcare (CHNG) has received pushback from the DoJ. The trial is set for August. However, CHNG operates in a different industry (medical billing software) than LHCG and the UHN-CHNG transaction has a much higher business overlap compared to UNH-LHCG merger. Secondly, since Joe Biden’s executive order on promoting competition in 2021, antitrust regulators have been putting increasing attention on healthcare mergers, highlighting impact on workers’ wages and the degree of vertical integration. These two concerns could be at play in the LHCG-UNH transaction. Also, as of May, the FTC has shifted to a majority-democratic commission, possibly pointing to tighter regulatory scrutiny. Despite these risks, I see several reasons why the LHCG merger is likely to receive regulatory clearance: UNH and LHCG have a low service overlap. The home healthcare market is highly fragmented. The Kindred-Humana merger is a comparable transaction in the home healthcare space. Recent FTC ruling history suggests that healthcare mergers are blocked due to geographical overlap/dominant market shares - largely not applicable to UNH-LHCG. Moreover, seemingly no mergers were blocked solely on labor pay grounds. Let’s go through these one-by-one. Limited Business Overlap LHCG operates in the post-acute healthcare market. The primary focus is on home-based healthcare services which have historically made a lion’s share of revenues at ~80%. This includes two reportable segments - home health (~70%) and home-/community-based care (~10%). The company operates home nursing agencies through which it provides post-acute nursing, medically-oriented social services and therapy. Other segments (~20% of revenues) are hospices, facility-based healthcare services and other healthcare businesses. Meanwhile, UNH is a vertically-integrated multinational company - it runs both health insurance (UnitedHealthcare) and health services (Optum) businesses. The Optum arm provides a continuum of healthcare services, including primary care, virtual care, behavioral health and ambulatory surgery. Even so, the company’s presence in the post-acute in-home care market has been limited. Apparently, ever since the pandemic, UNH has sought to expand the segment. Still, some overlap with LHCG remains - UNH launched its own service HouseCalls as well as acquired start-ups Landmark Health and naviHealth. HouseCalls in an annual in-home medical assessment and not a post-acute care service. Having said that, the number of patient visits in 2021 were at ~2.1m compared to 12m+ patient encounters at LHCG, though the latter include hospice patients. NaviHealth is a software business. The company operates a platform which helps hospital systems and healthcare providers manage clinical decision-making and track patient data. It should be noted that the focus is also on post-acute healthcare services. Landmark Health provides in-home care, however, the focus is exclusively on the sickest and most complicated patients. Services are offered in addition to regular primary care providers, such as LHCG. As of 2019, the number of annual visits was at 400k. Home-Care Market The in-home care market in the US is highly fragmented. To illustrate this, the largest market share captured by Kindred at Home (not publicly-listed) in recent years has been stable at only around 6% while other largest peers (Amedisys and Encompass) have occupied only ~4%-~5%. Company LHCG AMED EHC Kindred at Home Market Cap 5.0 4.1 4.9 Enterprise Value 5.8 4.5 8.0 FY2021 Home Care Revenues ($bn) 1.6 1.4 0.9 Market Share 4.4% 5.0% 3.9% 6.0% Sources: Company filings and HealthCare Appraisers. LexisNexis Visually, LHCG (top-right) appears to cover similar geographies as the largest peers Kindred, Amedisys and Encompass: AMED 8-K Filing, LHCG Investor Presentation, EHC Investor Reference Book, Kindred Healthcare Investor Presentation (Kindred acquired Gentiva in 2015) Looking more specifically, LHCG’s share of the number of home care agencies in several states is significant at ~70% in Mississippi and ~50% in Kentucky. However, these areas have relatively low numbers of total home care providers. Plus, total agency number includes only Medicare-registered providers whose count stands at ~11k compared to a rough estimate of ~35k+ including non-licensed agencies. With this in mind, the merger is unlikely to result in UNH obtaining any alarming market power other than in several specific geographies where divestitures, if needed, could be reasonable to expect. This makes any antitrust pushback very unlikely.

Seeking Alpha • Jul 06

FTC second request in LHC Group/UnitedHealth said to probe pay, labor market

The FTC's second request into UnitedHealth's (NYSE:UNH) planned $5.4 billion purchase of LHC Group (NASDAQ:LHCG) is said to be centered on workers' pay in the home healthcare space. The companies received a second request early last month that was unexpected, according to a Dealreporter item, which cited sources familiar. Kindred Healthcare's sale to Apollo Global also received a second request from the FTC. The FTC is said to be looking at how pay in the healthcare space and how minimum wage workers have trouble bargaining for higher wages, according to the report. UnitedHealth (UNG) agreed to buy home health business LHC Group for $170/share in late March.

Shareholder Returns

	LHCG	US Healthcare	US Market
7D	0.6%	-1.3%	1.6%
1Y	32.1%	12.4%	28.5%

Return vs Industry: LHCG exceeded the US Healthcare industry which returned -0.3% over the past year.

Return vs Market: LHCG exceeded the US Market which returned -9% over the past year.

Price Volatility

Is LHCG's price volatile compared to industry and market?
LHCG volatility
LHCG Average Weekly Movement	2.1%
Healthcare Industry Average Movement	7.3%
Market Average Movement	7.2%
10% most volatile stocks in US Market	16.8%
10% least volatile stocks in US Market	3.0%

Stable Share Price: LHCG has not had significant price volatility in the past 3 months.

Volatility Over Time: LHCG's weekly volatility (2%) has been stable over the past year.

About the Company

Founded	Employees	CEO	Website
1994	23,000	Keith Myers	www.lhcgroup.com

LHC Group, Inc., a health care provider, specializes in the post-acute continuum of care primarily for Medicare beneficiaries in the United States. It operates through five segments: Home Health Services, Hospice Services, Home and Community-Based Services, Facility-Based Services, and Healthcare Innovations (HCI). The Home Health Services segment offers skilled nursing, medically oriented social services and physical, occupational, and speech therapy.

LHC Group, Inc. Fundamentals Summary

How do LHC Group's earnings and revenue compare to its market cap?
LHCG fundamental statistics
Market cap	US$5.29b
Earnings (TTM)	US$39.87m
Revenue (TTM)	US$2.28b

132.7x

P/E Ratio

2.3x

P/S Ratio

Is LHCG overvalued?

See Fair Value and valuation analysis

Earnings & Revenue

Key profitability statistics from the latest earnings report (TTM)
LHCG income statement (TTM)
Revenue	US$2.28b
Cost of Revenue	US$1.40b
Gross Profit	US$883.61m
Other Expenses	US$843.74m
Earnings	US$39.87m

Last Reported Earnings

Dec 31, 2022

Next Earnings Date

n/a

Earnings per share (EPS)	1.28
Gross Margin	38.71%
Net Profit Margin	1.75%
Debt/Equity Ratio	43.0%

How did LHCG perform over the long term?

See historical performance and comparison

Company Analysis and Financial Data Status

Data	Last Updated (UTC time)
Company Analysis	2023/02/23 21:48
End of Day Share Price	2023/02/21 00:00
Earnings	2022/12/31
Annual Earnings	2022/12/31

Data Sources

The data used in our company analysis is from S&P Global Market Intelligence LLC. The following data is used in our analysis model to generate this report. Data is normalised which can introduce a delay from the source being available.

Package	Data	Timeframe	Example US Source ^*
Company Financials	10 years	Income statement Cash flow statement Balance sheet	SEC Form 10-K SEC Form 10-Q
Analyst Consensus Estimates	+3 years	Forecast financials Analyst price targets	Analyst Research Reports Blue Matrix
Market Prices	30 years	Stock prices Dividends, Splits and Actions	ICE Market Data SEC Form S-1
Ownership	10 years	Top shareholders Insider trading	SEC Form 4 SEC Form 13D
Management	10 years	Leadership team Board of directors	SEC Form 10-K SEC Form DEF 14A
Key Developments	10 years	Company announcements	SEC Form 8-K

^* Example for US securities, for non-US equivalent regulatory forms and sources are used.

Unless specified all financial data is based on a yearly period but updated quarterly. This is known as Trailing Twelve Month (TTM) or Last Twelve Month (LTM) Data. Learn more.

Analysis Model and Snowflake

Details of the analysis model used to generate this report is available on our Github page, we also have guides on how to use our reports and tutorials on Youtube.

Learn about the world class team who designed and built the Simply Wall St analysis model.

Industry and Sector Metrics

Our industry and section metrics are calculated every 6 hours by Simply Wall St, details of our process are available on Github.

Analyst Sources

LHC Group, Inc. is covered by 21 analysts. 8 of those analysts submitted the estimates of revenue or earnings used as inputs to our report. Analysts submissions are updated throughout the day.

Analyst	Institution
Matthew Gillmor	Baird
Steven Valiquette	Barclays
Sarah James	Barclays

This company has been acquired

LHC Group (LHCG) Stock Overview

Rewards

Risk Analysis

LHC Group, Inc. Competitors

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Price History & Performance

Recent News & Updates

Full year 2022 earnings: EPS and revenues miss analyst expectations

Consensus forecasts updated

Insufficient new directors

Consensus EPS estimates fall by 20%

Third quarter 2022 earnings: EPS and revenues miss analyst expectations

LHC Group, Inc. to Report Q3, 2022 Results on Nov 02, 2022

Recent updates

Full year 2022 earnings: EPS and revenues miss analyst expectations

Consensus forecasts updated

Insufficient new directors

Consensus EPS estimates fall by 20%

Third quarter 2022 earnings: EPS and revenues miss analyst expectations

LHC Group, Inc. to Report Q3, 2022 Results on Nov 02, 2022

Consensus forecasts updated

Consensus forecasts updated

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) announced an agreement to acquire Three Rivers Home Health Services, Inc.

Consensus EPS estimates fall by 35%

Second quarter 2022 earnings: EPS and revenues miss analyst expectations

LHC Group GAAP EPS of $0.35 misses by $0.95, revenue of $576.2M misses by $29.82M

LHC Group: UnitedHealth Merger Is Worth Playing

LHC Group, Inc. to Report Q2, 2022 Results on Aug 03, 2022

FTC second request in LHC Group/UnitedHealth said to probe pay, labor market

First quarter 2022 earnings: EPS misses analyst expectations

Insufficient new directors

LHC Group, Inc. to Report Q1, 2022 Results on May 04, 2022

Insufficient new directors

OptumHealth, Inc. entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) for $5.5 billion.

Full year 2021 earnings: EPS misses analyst expectations

LHC Group, Inc. Provides Earnings Guidance for the First Quarter and Full Year of 2022

Executive VP & General Counsel recently sold US$100k worth of stock

Investor sentiment improved over the past week

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) announces an Equity Buyback for $250 million worth of its shares.

Third quarter 2021 earnings released: EPS US$0.89 (vs US$0.47 in 3Q 2020)

Price target decreased to US$212

Price target decreased to US$222

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) agreed to acquire Generations Home Health.

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) acquired Heart of Hospice, LLC from Evening Post Industries, Inc.

Investor sentiment deteriorated over the past week

Second quarter 2021 earnings released: EPS US$1.21 (vs US$1.44 in 2Q 2020)

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) completed the acquisition of Cavalier Healthcare Services Inc.

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) entered into an agreement to acquire Ashley County Medical Center Home Health.

Lead Independent Director Wilbert Tauzin has left the company

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) signed a definitive agreement to acquire Heart of Hospice, LLC from Evening Post Industries, Inc.

Independent Director recently sold US$1.0m worth of stock

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) entered into an agreement to acquire Heart ‘n Home Hospice & Palliative Care, LLC.

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) agreed to acquire two hospice care provider in Tucson from La Casa de la Raza, Inc.

First quarter 2021 earnings released: EPS US$1.11 (vs US$0.71 in 1Q 2020)

LHC Group, Inc. Raises Revenue Guidance for the Full Year 2021

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG), Texas Health Resources Inc. and North Texas Health Facilities Management, Inc entered into an agreement to acquire Regent Home Health.

Lhc Group and Orlando Health Expands Partnership in Florida

Revenue and earnings miss expectations

Full year 2020 earnings released: EPS US$3.59 (vs US$3.10 in FY 2019)

New 90-day low: US$188

LHC Group, Inc., Annual General Meeting, Jun 10, 2021

LHC Group, Inc. to Report Q4, 2020 Results on Feb 25, 2021

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) completed the acquisition of East Valley Hospice and East Valley Palliative Care.

New 90-day low: US$196

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) agreed to acquire Grace Hospice Of Oklahoma.

Analysts update estimates

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) entered into an agreement to acquire East Valley Hospice and East Valley Palliative Care.

Revenue beats expectations, earnings disappoint

Third quarter 2020 earnings released: EPS US$0.47

LHC Group, Inc. Revises Earnings Guidance for the Full Year 2020

LHC Group, Inc. Appoints Dale G. Mackel to Serve as its Executive Vice President and Treasurer

LHC Group and CHRISTUS Health Expand Joint Venture Partnership in Texas

LHC Group, Inc. to Report Q3, 2020 Results on Nov 04, 2020

Lhc Group, Inc. Finalizes Two New Joint Venture Agreements in Georgia, Purchases Colorado Hospice Provider

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) completed the acquisition of unknown minority stake in Norton Healthcare, Inc.

LHC Group, Inc. (NasdaqGS:LHCG) completed the acquisition of Home Health and Home and Community Based Services from VNA of Maryland and Elite Home Care Services.