Dryships, The Saga Continues

Apologies for those who find the subject of Dryships, well, rather dry. This is a follow on from the post "Never Enough Lessons on Forward PE". I basically added a comment on seeking alpha explaining what one starting point might be for valuing a highly cyclical, asset-heavy company like Dryships, and wanted to include it here at The Stalwart.

As for how might someone value dryships? Well let's think as if one were actually in the industry looking to expand your fleet. An industry player can either buy ships in the market or buy a company that owns ships. If you get far more ships for your buck buying DRYS than buying int he market, then I think that's a decent starting point, but we must be very careful since even dry bulk (and rig) asset prices can fluctuate quite substantially. Thinking from an industry buyer perspective would be simply thinking about the value of a dry bulk company as the actual players in the industry do. I promise you they don't forecast 1 year of earnings and then calculate a multiple. Wall street analysts frequently do, and companies put simple multiples in their investor presentations, but trust me actual shipping players don't make decisions like this. DRYS has rigs and bulk vessels, plus perhaps some additional value from its organization and customer relationships. But you would probably want to be getting DRYS at a price where you were getting its assets at a good discount to market prices, as this would give you some cushion. (these asset prices can fall, so good to have a margin of safety). Just don't forget that DRYS has a lot of debt, so you would want your adjusted NAV (adjusted to include a margin of safety vs. asset price declines) to be much higher than Enterprise Value (not market cap).

Again, I have never owned Dryships nor have been long or short the stock in any manner.

Comments

[Carl]

Earlier this summer, I woke up one morning and saw DryShips at about $100, Oil was ridiculous and I thought to myself, "do you know what might be a pretty good short? DRYS. It's been quite a ride. If you have a moment, you might want to check out www.financialtales.com It's just some oldschool advice to get people through these exciting times. Thanks.