Aveanna Healthcare

Revenue hit 670.5 million dollars in the second quarter of 2026, up 13.7 percent from a year earlier, with all three business segments growing. Profit climbed 49 percent to 40.3 million dollars. Management has now raised its full year outlook twice in 2026, first to a 2.63 to 2.65 billion dollar range in June and again in August to more than 2.68 billion dollars.

Every year more Americans turn 65, and treating them at home costs a fraction of a hospital stay. Aveanna's home health and hospice arm earns a 54 percent gross margin, well above the roughly 30 percent it makes on nursing, so growth there lifts the whole company. In June it paid 175.5 million dollars in cash for Family First Homecare, adding 27 locations across seven states.

Aveanna carries roughly 1.5 billion dollars of debt against just 288 million dollars of book equity. That means a real slice of every dollar earned goes to lenders before it ever reaches shareholders. Management is working to bring leverage down from 5.24 times earnings toward 3 times, but until that lands the balance sheet leaves very little room for a bad year.

Most of Aveanna's money ultimately comes from Medicaid and Medicare, so government decides what it gets paid. A funding cut or a slow rate increase in one big state hits revenue directly and there is nothing the company can do about it. Growth is also cooling, from 27.4 percent in late 2025 to 15.9 percent and then 13.7 percent in the two quarters since, while gross margin slipped from 35.8 percent to 32.6 percent.