Waystar Stock Is Down 32% This Past Year, but One Fund Bought Up $11.5 Million Last Quarter

Blue Door Asset Management bought 322,600 shares of Waystar on Feb 17, 2026 — an estimated $11.49M trade — bringing its post-trade stake to 402,300 shares valued at $13.18M (about 8.3% of AUM). Waystar reported 2025 revenue of $1.10B (+17% YoY) and adjusted EBITDA of ~$462M (+21% YoY); management projects 2026 revenue ~ $1.28B and adjusted EBITDA ~$535M at the midpoint. Shares trade at $24.16, down ~31.5% over the past year despite solid growth, so the purchase signals conviction in healthcare SaaS but is unlikely to move the broader market.

Analysis

Blue Door’s sizable allocation to a healthcare RCM SaaS name reads as a signal from a value-oriented manager that the market has overly discounted a high-quality recurring-revenue stream. With a large fund backing, this kind of conviction can change the investor narrative around the sub-sector by attracting other long-only and event-driven capital; expect short-term volatility but a higher probability of positive price discovery if quarterly metrics (ARR retention, large-client adoption, payment volume) stay positive.

Competitive dynamics tilt in favor of cloud-native vendors that combine payments, analytics and automation into a single stack — that increases switching costs for customers and creates cross-sell leverage for integration partners. Second-order beneficiaries include systems integrators and digital engineering firms that help hospitals deploy automated RCM flows; conversely, legacy on-prem vendors and small boutique RCM providers are at elevated risk of share loss and consolidation pressure.

Key risks are sentiment-driven multiple compression and any surprise deterioration in churn or payer-related collections timing; both can unwind gains quickly in the near term. Watch three time horizons: days–weeks for positioning flows and headline risk, 3–12 months for execution against guidance and retention metrics, and 12–36 months for structural outcomes (large-client wins, margin expansion or M&A).

Key Decisions for Investors

• Tranche-buy core long position in WAY over 6–12 weeks (3–4 tranches). Initial size: 2–3% of portfolio; add to confirmed beat-and-raise quarters. Use a protective stop at ~15% beneath entry; target 35–50% upside in 12–18 months if retention and ARR trajectory hold.
• Defined-risk call-spread for asymmetric upside: buy Jan-2027 calls and sell higher strikes to finance premium (allocate 25–33% of equivalent outright long exposure). This preserves leverage to a re-rating while capping downside to the premium paid.
• Pair trade: long WAY vs short a high-multiple, sentiment-exposed SaaS name (small size). Rationale: isolates fundamental RCM adoption from broad AI/valuation derating; size the short <50% of long notional to limit directional exposure.
• Overweight EPAM and NICE-sized exposure (relative to benchmark) as tactical plays on integration and analytics demand from healthcare customers; hold 6–12 months and trim into outsized multiple expansion. Monitor customer win announcements and RFP cycles as entry/exit signals.