Janet Hagerman

Stanley Bergman of Henry Schein reflects on 30 years of their history as a publicly traded company. Great read if you are a dental industry nerd ⤵️ "...The growth on the journey from IPO in '95 to today has been quite significant, with sales growth over this period growing at over 11% compounded average growth rate. From a market capitalization of $280 million, the value of the company has grown at almost 12% compounded average growth rate, including the value of the Animal Health business we spun off in 2019. So this 12% compounded annual average growth rate over this 30 years as a public company. Like all rapidly growing businesses, there have been some significant ups and downs along the way. When we merged Sullivan Dental and Meer Dental back in 1997, skeptics questioned whether we could integrate 3 distinct cultures and turn our business from a dental mail-order company to a dental full-service operation, including a field sales organization and equipment sales and service while integrating these 3 cultures. That year, we also acquired Dentrix Dental Systems, creating what some call a 3-legged chair, selling products, services and technology. Shortly thereafter, we had a dental and aesthetic recall issue. When our stock price fell, we chose the difficult path of continuing the journey of creating the world's largest full-service dental distribution and dental practice management software businesses. Within a short period of time, our customers saw the value of our one-stop shop of products and related services. Then came our bold expansion into Europe, which was accelerated in 2004 with the acquisition of Demedis, the recently spun out distribution business of Sirona. This created a global platform, which changed the level of discussion within the industry to a global one, new markets, new regulations, new cultures, new common values. When the 2008 financial crisis struck, we were forced to make difficult decisions while staying true to our values. We tightened our belt but kept investing in our people and our future. Fast forward to 2020, COVID temporarily closed down the dental market. There were empty offices, disrupted supply chains and uncertainty everywhere. But Team Schein adapted and using our world-class supply chain network played a key role with governments in supplying personal protective equipment, mainly masks as well as COVID tests to, of course, health care professionals, health care practices throughout the world. When the world reopened, we bounced back. The business was growing well until October of '23 when the cyber event hit us. For a moment, it felt like everything we built was vulnerable to an invisible threat. But once again, our team rallied, restored our systems and began the recovery..." ➡️ What will Henry Schein look like 5-10 years from now as they enter this new era?

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