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Edwards Lifesciences (EW) stock returned 24.2% over the past year, against 12.2% for the S&P 500. Part of the case for owning the stock is the buyback. Edwards cut its diluted share count by 5.2% over three years, leaving each remaining share with a slightly bigger slice of the business. For you, that matters only if the heart-valve maker continues producing the cash to fund the buyback and the profit behind each share. So does each Edwards share earn more than it did three years ago?
Does Each Edwards Share Earn More Than Before?
Not on reported numbers. Edwards earned $1.77 per diluted share over the four quarters to September 30, 2026, against $2.34 for the same stretch three years earlier. That is a fall of 8.9% a year. Net income fell faster, dropping by 10.6% a year, so the shrinking share count softened the decline but did not turn it into growth. The earlier figure includes the Critical Care business, which Edwards sold in September 2024. On the adjusted basis management reports, earnings per share rose to $2.35 in the first nine months of 2026 from $1.98 a year earlier.
Most of the drop came from charges. In the first nine months of 2026, Edwards took a $220 million write-down of a research and development asset, $164 million of impairment losses on investments in other medical device companies, and a $174 million tax charge after California limited the use of research tax credits, partly offset by gains on investments. Earnings were also weak in the fourth quarter of 2025, at $91 million. Management said on the November 4, 2026 call that the write-down was the main reason third-quarter GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.53; it cut third-quarter operating income to $299 million.
The buyback program itself is modest. Net of the stock it awards employees, Edwards spent the equivalent of about 0.95% of its market value on buybacks over the past year.
Edwards Pays For The Buyback From Its Valve Business
Edwards produced $1.42 billion of free cash flow over the four quarters to September 30, 2026, and the company pays no dividend. That cash covered its $755 million of buybacks 1.9 times over.
The cash comes from a business that keeps a large part of each sale as profit. Edwards’ operating margin was 21.6% over those four quarters, against 19.0% for the S&P 500. Most of its revenue comes from Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement, heart valves delivered by catheter, which brought in $4.49 billion of the company’s $6.07 billion in fiscal 2025. The smaller Transcatheter Mitral and Tricuspid Therapies line grew 56.4% that year.
