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Guardian Pharmacy Services, Inc. (GRDN)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Wed, Mar 11, 2026

$37.46

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Guardian Pharmacy Services, Inc. Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. This call is being recorded on Wednesday, 03/11/2026. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ashley Stockton. Please go ahead.

Ashley Stockton

Management

Good afternoon. Thank you for participating in today's conference call. My name is Ashley Stockton, Vice President, Investor Relations for Guardian Pharmacy Services, Inc. I am joined on today's call by Fred Burke, President and Chief Executive Officer, and David Morris, Chief Financial Officer. After the close today, Guardian Pharmacy Services, Inc. posted its financial results for the quarter ended 12/31/2025. A copy of the press release is available on the company's Investor Relations website. Please note that today's discussion will include certain forward-looking statements that reflect our current assumptions and expectations, including those related to our future financial performance and industry and market conditions. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. We encourage you to review the information in today's press release, as well as in our Annual Report on Form 10-K to be filed with the SEC, including the specific risk factors and uncertainties discussed therein. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. On today's call, we also will use certain non-GAAP financial measures when discussing the company's financial performance and condition. You can find additional information on these non-GAAP measures and reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures in today's press release, which again is available on our Investor Relations website. I will now turn the call over to Fred for commentary.

Fred Burke

President

Thank you, Ashley, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate your continued interest as we review another very strong quarter and year for Guardian Pharmacy Services, Inc. Turning briefly to the fourth quarter, we delivered results that exceeded our expectations across the board, reflecting solid execution throughout the organization. David will walk through the quarterly details in more depth. What I would like to focus on today is our full-year 2025 performance, including our key financial results and major accomplishments. Looking back, 2025 was one of broad-based execution and disciplined investment, with results that were ahead of plan. Our annual performance was anchored by organic revenue growth of 13%, driven by new resident additions, script growth, and higher acuity. Acquisitions, three of which were completed midyear, complemented our organic results and brought full-year reported revenue growth to 18%. Adjusted EBITDA grew 27% year over year with margins expanding 50 basis points to 7.9%. This increase occurred even as we integrated acquisitions that remain early in their path to profitability, navigated a branded inhaler category headwind, which was an unintended consequence of the American Rescue Plan, and absorbed new public company costs. That performance reflects disciplined execution, operating leverage, and the scalability of our model. Importantly, this earnings strength translated directly into cash generation and balance sheet flexibility, allowing us to invest for continued growth while further strengthening our financial position. We continue to deploy capital toward acquisitions and greenfield startups in attractive markets, while also investing in new data analytics capabilities. Even with these investments in growth, technology, and infrastructure, we increased our cash balance by approximately $60,000,000, reflecting the strong cash-generating nature of our model. Lastly, we delivered a full-year return of 27%. This performance underscores our disciplined approach to capital allocation. Our financial results ultimately reflect the operational and…

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Fred, and good afternoon, everyone. I am pleased to review another strong quarter in which we delivered results ahead of our expectations. We ended the quarter serving over 205,000 residents, an increase of 10% year over year. Script volume grew 14% year over year while revenue increased 17% year over year to $397,600,000, atop 12% organic growth. Gross profit rose 27% to $85,500,000 with gross margins expanding to 21.5% from 19.8% a year ago. Performance in the quarter reflects structural improvements, including stronger vaccine economics, improved contribution from acquisitions and greenfield startups, as well as continued success with our plan optimization initiatives. Let me start with vaccines. Vaccine script volumes were up 3% year over year, in line with our expectations, as some volume was pulled into the third quarter. More importantly, we saw an increase in profitability due to better vaccine purchasing and reimbursement. We also benefited from contributions from greenfield locations which are ramping efficiently and performing ahead of our initial expectations. Acquisitions also contributed to the outperformance, as we implemented purchasing and reimbursement programs sooner than anticipated in our Pacific Northwest additions. Both locations also began onboarding national accounts earlier than is typical. Our greenfield startup and acquisitions made over the last two years as a group continue to dampen our overall margin by approximately 90 basis points. We also continue to see success from our plan optimization initiatives, which helped to increase our Medicare Part D mix within the portfolio, supporting better coverage and lower out-of-pocket costs for residents plus improved reimbursement for us. In addition to the structural improvements, a portion of our upside in our gross margin was due to favorable payor dynamics and other quarter-to-quarter variability. While incorporated in our results, we do not forecast this continuing in our outlook. Moving…

Fred Burke

President

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Should you wish to cancel your request, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of John Ransom from Raymond James. Please go ahead.

John Ransom

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Hey, good afternoon. Can you hear me?

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

Loud and clear.

John Ransom

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Hello? Great. I am having some tech issues, David. So just still trying to process the 4Q feed. I know there were some nonrecurring things in there, but could you help us understand what is durable, what was vaccine, and what is not recurring in the quarter?

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

John, you are breaking up just a little bit, but we are guiding to our run rate we talked about as we ended the year, approximately $110,000,000 of EBITDA. And the variability with all the change going on in the industry that we had in the fourth quarter, we are not projecting that into our base. And we mentioned the things that related to that. There are always puts and takes with our PBM payors. Typically, they net out. In Q4, we had a net positive. So that is one thing that is not in our base that we are continuing. Also, increasing acuity is not in our base. So those are the main drivers that are not in there.

John Ransom

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

So did the vaccine program contribute more this year than last year? I know it was a big success for you last year.

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

It continued to be significant both revenue- and profit-wise in Q4, but we had some improvement on the reimbursement side and the buy side. So it continued to grow with our business. But the margins did expand slightly.

John Ransom

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Okay. And then just kind of taking a step back. I know you are probably tired of talking about the IRA negotiations, but I think one thing you mentioned before was you wanted to take this opportunity to try to balance the profit contribution between generics and branded to better reflect the fact that 90% of your script volume is generic. So maybe just kind of talk about, at a high level, knowing you have got contract confidentiality, but just at a high level, what were you able to get done from a contracting standpoint to kind of better balance the two profit streams.

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

John, that is something we have been working on even before IRA, and we have made progress with several payors in 2025. You mentioned that 92% of our prescriptions that we dispense are generic, and I can say we are moving forward in a positive manner, aligning the gross margin dollars with that activity.

John Ransom

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Okay. And then just finally, you had mentioned a stat a couple of calls ago that if you were to run everything at your margin, you have got a number of pharmacies now that are not at mature margin. Is that gap between potential margin and realized margin still what it was a couple of quarters ago?

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

It is a little bit more. We said 80 basis points last quarter. It was closer to 90 basis points in Q4, and that is the investment we are making for future locations and future accretive profitability.

John Ransom

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Okay. That is it for me. Thank you.

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, John.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of David MacDonald from Truist. Please go ahead.

David MacDonald

Analyst · David MacDonald from Truist. Please go ahead

Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. Just a couple. I wanted to follow up on John's first question a little bit. On the vaccine program, you highlighted a couple of things that improved profitability. I think you used the word materially. It did not sound like any of those would not be durable. Are we thinking about that correctly? And then, if we look at the better assumed margins in the 2026 guidance, is there one or two things that kind of stand out in terms of what is incrementally driving those margins better than your prior expectations?

Fred Burke

President

Yeah. Let me start with the vaccine clinic.

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

The profitability was slightly improved in 2025 versus 2024. That is durable and will continue into 2026. And I think the midpoint of our new guidance is 8.6% for our adjusted EBITDA margin. And, David, that is really a factor of us continuing our year-on-year adjusted EBITDA growth rate in the low double digits while the revenues remain flattish. The combination of that will take us to midpoint adjusted EBITDA of about 8.6%. So we will see it go up.

Fred Burke

President

And I will pipe in, Dave, to add to David's comments that, yes, the vaccine clinics have contributed materially to our full Q4, and we would expect to see that next year. It is part of our business.

David MacDonald

Analyst · David MacDonald from Truist. Please go ahead

And then, you mentioned some of the competitive dynamics in terms of a competitor out there. Can you spend a minute on the opportunity around either share gain with some struggling competitors, potentially more aggressive on the M&A side, or pace of greenfields around some of the areas where you see maybe some outsized opportunities? Just some of the disruption that some of the competitors are seeing, or certainly at least one, and the opportunities that potentially raises for you?

Fred Burke

President

Very difficult topic to expand on because we are participating in the bankruptcy process. But all the things you mentioned could potentially represent opportunities for us as we move forward and that process is complete.

David MacDonald

Analyst · David MacDonald from Truist. Please go ahead

And then just one last one. You mentioned labor as a benefit on the margin side. Obviously, as you scale, you get increased efficiencies. But on the labor side, are you seeing both efficiencies and some improvement in just labor inflation? Or is that more just as you get bigger, you are able to better leverage the labor force that you have got in place?

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

Dave, it is more of the latter. The existing platform that scales labor is what is driving the efficiencies.

David MacDonald

Analyst · David MacDonald from Truist. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks very much. That is all for me.

Fred Burke

President

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Once again, that is star and one to ask a question. Your next question comes from the line of Raj Kumar from Stephens. Please go ahead.

Raj Kumar

Analyst · Raj Kumar from Stephens. Please go ahead

Hey, good afternoon. Maybe just touching on the prepared remarks around faster ramp-up in the recently acquired facilities. As you think about the large and regional accounts and what that constitutes as part of the current resident base, any framing on the remaining opportunity on that front? And then also, since ALF is your core end market, there has been a lot of activity around divestitures or disposition of operations from certain large regional accounts of yours, and maybe if there is any impact that you see on that front or any color on how you ensure continuity of service and continue to cover the residents while these operational changes go on in the background.

Fred Burke

President

I will take the latter question and then hand it to David. As the industry undergoes consolidation—I am speaking now about the assisted living operators, our core market segment—we believe that it provides us with opportunity. In fact, the one example that I am assuming you are citing ended up being exactly that. We have maintained service at all the facilities that we were serving, and it has given us an opportunity to meet new operating groups and show them what we can do. So, on balance, those types of dislocations represent, in our opinion, an opportunity for us.

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

And then, Raj, on your first question, we mentioned that we were able to integrate and achieve scale earlier with the platforms, particularly those that we closed in the Pacific Northwest. They vary. We talk a lot about, on average, it takes four years, plus or minus, to bring acquisitions up and achieve the synergies. Things like operating systems, purchasing platforms, and national accounts that can come on sooner or later impact these businesses. In the Pacific Northwest, we were able to do some of these things earlier.

Raj Kumar

Analyst · Raj Kumar from Stephens. Please go ahead

Got it. And then, thinking about the M&A pipeline, there have been estimates where 60% of long-term care pharmacies are at risk of shutting down given cash flow constraints and IRA pricing. As we think about your strategy and what is available from an M&A standpoint in terms of your typical tuck-ins, are you seeing a buyer’s market on that front? And then relative to the inherent opportunity post-acquisition, does that still remain the same, or do you see more upside based on the assets that are coming into the market?

Fred Burke

President

Good question, Raj. I want to start by emphasizing that we believe very strongly in being supportive of our industry, and the last thing we want to see are our industry colleagues under duress. That is why we have worked so hard and diligently with our trade group, the SCPC, to mitigate the effects of the various changes that are occurring on the policy front from DC. That said, it is early days. We are going through the first implementation of this IRA which, as I mentioned in my remarks, introduces new processes, reimbursement procedures, cash flow, etc. I am hopeful that our industry colleagues can manage their way through it. Potentially, it could impact our opportunity on the M&A front, and we certainly would welcome that opportunity with like-minded operators, but it is too early to call on that for sure. Right now, it is something we will be watching as we move forward.

David Morris

Chief Financial Officer

Raj, as it relates to our pipeline, we had a robust pipeline in 2025 and it continues to be robust in 2026. As Fred said, as we are navigating all these industry changes, we are going to continue to take a disciplined approach. We see like-minded operators and territories that we want to expand into. I think we are adopting a very consistent approach to what we have had the last couple of years.

Raj Kumar

Analyst · Raj Kumar from Stephens. Please go ahead

Got it. Thank you.

Fred Burke

President

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.