Cooper Companies has spent most of 2026 destroying shareholder confidence in slow motion. First came the guidance reductions. Then a nine-month review of its surgical business that ended, on September 9, with no deal and no buyer willing to meet management’s price. The stock plunged about 15% on Thursday, September 10 after Cooper cut full-year non-GAAP EPS guidance to $4.51 to $4.55 and its board walked away from selling CooperSurgical. Nine days later, Jana Partners decided it had seen enough.
On September 18, Jana announced it had sent a letter to Cooper’s board calling for an immediate external CEO search, the appointment of a new board chair, and the evaluation of asset sales. Albert White has served as Cooper’s CEO since May 2018. Jana, which holds roughly 1.8% of the company, is now pressing for his exit publicly. The escalation is pointed: the September guidance reduction was the fourth cut in roughly two years, deepening concerns over operational execution and underlying momentum in the vision-care franchise.
What Went Wrong
Jana’s letter accused management of slashing CooperVision segment growth due to inflated channel inventory, coming up empty on a long strategic review for CooperSurgical that the CEO repeatedly hyped, and aggressively repurchasing stock ahead of both negative outcomes. The capital allocation strategy, Jana argued, failed to realize value for CooperSurgical following billions spent to acquire it and failed to generate acceptable performance in CooperVision after approximately $750 million in capital invested in 2023 and 2024.
CooperVision’s softness stems from U.S. channel inventory destocking, which will continue to pressure fourth-quarter results, though management expects the destocking to be largely complete going into fiscal 2027, when CooperVision should grow in line with mid-single-digit market consumption trends. That is a credible stabilization path. The problem is that investors have heard similar timelines before.
The Breakup Math
The central question Jana is forcing on the board is a valuation one: are the pieces worth more than the whole? CooperVision generates about 66% of total revenue. Cooper itself has described the global soft contact lens market as about $11 billion growing 4% to 6% annually, with CooperVision at roughly 27% share, Johnson and Johnson at about 37%, and Alcon at about 25%.
CooperVision produced $2.14 billion in net sales for the nine months ended July 31, 2026, up 5% year over year. CooperSurgical breaks into two pieces: an office and surgical segment generating $624.6 million in nine-month net sales, and a fertility services segment generating $411.6 million in the same period. Add them up and the asset base is substantial, even at today’s depressed prices.
At roughly 18 times earnings and down about 40% from its high, the question is whether the aborted CooperSurgical sale represents seller capitulation or the market’s definitive judgment. The average analyst price target among 16 analysts sits at $70.64, implying about 29% upside from current levels. Stifel’s earlier estimate, before the deal collapse, pegged a pure-play contact lens company at $80 per share.
Who Might Buy and Why It Is Complicated
Jana originally floated a CooperVision combination with Bausch + Lomb when it first disclosed its stake in late 2025. Bausch + Lomb’s CEO Brent Saunders told the Wall Street Journal that a potential combination with Cooper would strengthen competition and create a more scaled company in the contact lens segment. The enthusiasm was not matched by action. Analysts at Needham noted that a deal involving Alcon, Johnson and Johnson, or Cooper itself could face antitrust scrutiny given existing market shares. Private equity remains the more probable route for any CooperVision sale, though the leverage required at current interest rates makes a clean bid difficult.
Bull and Bear
The bull case rests on CooperVision’s structural position. Myopia management is a genuine secular growth market, and Cooper’s MiSight lens has secured regulatory approvals in both China and Japan. Free cash flow for the third quarter hit a record $273 million, expanding the company’s financial flexibility. A new CEO willing to run a cleaner process on CooperSurgical, with realistic price expectations, could unlock value the current leadership could not.
The bear case is simpler: credibility. Jana’s letter argued that the recent revenue miss and guidance reduction underscore structural issues in performance and capital allocation, and that a refreshed leadership team and sharper portfolio focus could support margin improvement and more consistent growth. But activist letters are not the same as structural fixes, and the contact lens inventory problem will not resolve itself before fiscal 2027. The stock has been at a ten-year valuation low before. It can stay there.
What to Watch
Cooper’s board response is the immediate catalyst. Any acknowledgment of an external CEO search or formal CooperVision process would move shares sharply. Watch fourth-quarter CooperVision channel data: management guided for CooperVision organic growth between minus 2% and zero in the fourth quarter, and any improvement there would signal that the destocking thesis, not permanent demand erosion, is the real story. If the board goes quiet, Jana will almost certainly escalate further.
