The ASX small-cap stock Australian Clinical Labs Ltd (ASX: ACL) has fallen more than 20% in 2025 to date, as the chart below shows. I'm calling this ASX healthcare share cheap because of a few different reasons.
Australian Clinical Labs describes itself as a leading Australian private provider of pathology services. Its laboratories perform a diverse range of pathology tests each year for a range of clients including doctors, specialists, patients, hospitals and corporate clients. The ASX small-cap stock is one of the largest private hospital pathology businesses nationally.
The business delivered significant profits during the COVID-19 period when testing for the virus was significant. But, the company's financials are improving again.
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Improving position
The business reported a strong set of numbers in the FY25 result.
It showed that in the 12 months to 30 June 2025, total revenue grew by 6.4% to $741.3 million, underlying operating profit (EBITDA) climbed by 6.8% to $204 million and underlying net profit climbed 7.7% to $34 million.
On the statutory numbers, statutory earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) jumped 25% to $66.1 million and statutory net profit soared 35.4% to $32.8 million.
The business is unlikely to report that level of strong statutory growth in the 2025 financial year, but the pleasing progress was promising.
FY25 also saw the business pay an annual dividend per share of 12.5 cents per share, plus a share buyback, totalling $44 million. It also reported it repaid $13 million of debt, on top of the capital returns I just mentioned.
The ASX small-cap stock has a promising outlook
FY25 is now history, it's important to look ahead to what may happen in FY26.
The business has provided guidance for the 2026 financial year, which looks promising, in my view.
It's expecting to deliver total revenue of between $760 million to $780 million. The middle of that guidance range suggests a possible year over year increase of a further 4%.
Underlying EBIT is expected to be between $67 million to $73 million, with the middle of that range suggest growth of around 3%.
In FY27, the company is expecting to boost EBIT by at least $8 million through upfront episode billing, price increases, digitalisation and application of AI, other technology advancements and workforce alignment to activity that should improve the labour ratio.
Cheap valuation
After falling more than 20% this year, the ASX small-cap stock is trading at 14x FY26's estimated earnings and 12x FY27's estimated earnings.
With earnings forecast to grow in the coming years, the outlook looks positive for the ASX small-cap stock, in my opinion.
