Why a public company
Our work for clients is confidential, so we cannot show it. The filings of a public company let us show the same reasoning on figures anyone can check.
We chose Utah Medical Products because it is closer in size to a private business than most listed companies: $38.5M of sales and about 150 employees. It is profitable and has no debt, so this is not a rescue story. It is a case of reading a decline correctly.
Where the sales went
Sales went from $50.2M in 2023 to $38.5M in 2025, $11.7M less. The company reports four product categories. Three fell and one grew, and a single category, blood pressure monitoring and accessories, accounts for 83% of the net decline.
The company’s own reports say why. That category included pressure sensors sold to one industrial customer, PendoTECH, which was 17% of total sales in 2023, about $8.6M. Those sales fell to about $2.7M in 2024 and $0.4M in 2025, and the company expects none from here on. That one relationship explains about 70% of the two-year decline.
Sales, 2023 to 2025, by product category
US$ millions
The business without that customer
Reported sales fell 18.6% in 2024 and 5.8% in 2025, which reads as a business that is still shrinking. Take that customer out and the picture changes: everything else fell about 8% in 2024 and was nearly flat in 2025.
This is the first thing we would want an owner to see. The headline number mixes an event that is now over with an underlying trend that has largely stabilized. Flat is not growth, though: inside it, neonatal products grew 17% over the two years while the gynecology and urology line fell 12%.
| Year | Reported sales | That customer | All other sales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $50.2M | $8.6M | $41.6M | |
| 2024 | $40.9M | $2.7M | $38.2M | −8.2% |
| 2025 | $38.5M | $0.4M | $38.1M | −0.3% |
Customer sales are rounded as the company states them, so “all other sales” is approximate.
What it cost in profit
Gross profit fell $8.0M, from $30.0M to $22.0M. Almost all of it is volume: about $7.0M comes from selling less at the 2023 margin, and about $1.0M from the margin itself slipping from 59.8% to 57.1%. The company attributes that slip to rising raw material costs and wage adjustments.
Operating income fell 32%, less than one might expect. Part of the reason is not operational. Amortization of intangible assets, a non-cash charge, dropped from $5.7M to $2.1M. Before that charge, operating income fell 40%. An owner who compares only the operating line from one year to the next would underestimate the hit.
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | $50.2M | $40.9M | $38.5M |
| Gross profit | $30.0M | $24.1M | $22.0M |
| Gross margin | 59.8% | 59.0% | 57.1% |
| Operating income | $16.8M | $13.6M | $11.4M |
| Amortization (non-cash) | $5.7M | $2.1M | $2.1M |
| Operating income before amortization | $22.5M | $15.7M | $13.5M |
Why cash held up
In 2025 net income fell $2.6M, yet cash from operations hardly changed: $14.8M in 2024 and $14.7M in 2025. The difference is working capital. Inventory came down from $9.6M at the end of 2023 to $7.9M at the end of 2025, releasing cash as stock was adjusted to lower sales.
Over the three years the business generated $51.8M of cash from operations. It invested $1.2M, paid $12.5M in dividends and bought back $28.3M of its own shares, and still ended 2025 with $10.7M more cash than it had at the start of 2023: $85.8M, and no debt.
What we would ask next
Public figures only go so far. With access to the detail, these are the questions we would bring to the next management meeting:
- How much of the remaining sales depends on the next two or three customers or distributors?
- With lower volume, how much fixed manufacturing cost is each unit now carrying, and where is break-even?
- Inventory reduction helped cash in 2025. It is a one-time source. What does cash flow look like once inventory is at the right level?
- Which product lines are growing, and do they earn enough margin to replace what was lost?
Sources and limits
All figures come from the company’s annual reports on Form 10-K for 2023, 2024 and 2025 and its year-end press releases, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The 10-K for 2025 was filed on March 27, 2026, and all filings are public.
Amounts are rounded. We have no access to internal information, and the questions above are ours, not the company’s.
The management questionHow much of our result depends on one customer, and what does the business look like without it?