Share count
36Mpeak FY2018
← All companies ← GAMB Manual GAU → ← FRO Marine Shipping GLBS →
GASS, StealthGas Inc.
We own a fleet of LPG carriers providing international seaborne transportation services to LPG producers and users.
Our LPG carriers carry various petroleum gas products in liquefied form, including propane, butane, butadiene, isopropane, propylene and vinyl chloride monomer, which are all byproducts of the production of crude oil and natural gas.
Commercial and Technical Management of Our Fleet We have a management agreement with Stealth Maritime, pursuant to which Stealth Maritime provides us with technical, administrative, commercial and certain other services.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$173M
+3.5% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $173M 5-yr avg $157M
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is Time Charter (78%), Voyage Charter (18%) and Other Income Revenues (4%).
- Situation
- Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 15% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −21% and 36% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Capital spending runs about 17% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 2%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 7% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 20-F →Time Charter is 78% of revenue, with Voyage Charter the other meaningful line at 18%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Time Charter78%$135M
- Voyage Charter18%$31M
- Other Income Revenues4%$7M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 20-F. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMDec 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $144M | $154M | $164M | $144M | $145M | $150M | $153M | $144M | $167M | $173M | $173M | RevenueRevenue |
| $7M | $15M | $11M | $22M | $23M | ($31M) | $33M | $46M | $60M | $55M | $55M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 4.9% | 10.0% | 6.4% | 15.0% | 16.1% | −20.6% | 21.4% | 31.9% | 35.8% | 31.8% | 31.8% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($8M) | ($1M) | ($12M) | $2M | $12M | ($35M) | $34M | $52M | $70M | $61M | $3M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $36M | $52M | $38M | $31M | $52M | $41M | $67M | $77M | $104M | $85M | $85M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $39M | $39M | $41M | $38M | $37M | $37M | $28M | $24M | $26M | $25M | $25M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $5M | $15M | $9M | ($9M) | $3M | $39M | $4M | $2M | $8M | ($718K) | $57M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $56M | $61M | $108M | $3M | $48M | $25M | $24M | $85K | $106M | $412K | $412K | CapexCapex |
| 39.0% | 39.3% | 65.9% | 2.1% | 33.2% | 16.8% | 15.9% | 0.1% | 63.5% | 0.2% | 0.2% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($20M) | ($8M) | ($70M) | $28M | $4M | $16M | $42M | $77M | ($3M) | $85M | $85M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −13.9% | −5.4% | −42.9% | 19.3% | 2.8% | 10.5% | 27.7% | 53.9% | −1.6% | 49.0% | 49.0% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($20M) | ($8M) | ($70M) | $28M | $4M | $16M | $42M | $77M | ($3M) | $85M | $85M | Free cash flowFCF |
| −13.9% | −5.4% | −42.9% | 19.3% | 2.8% | 10.5% | 27.7% | 53.9% | −1.6% | 49.0% | 49.0% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $2M | — | — | $2M | $4M | $0 | $0 | $19M | $338K | $2M | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 1% | 1% | 1% | 2% | 2% | -3% | 3% | 6% | 7% | 7% | 7% | ROICROIC |
| -1% | -0% | -2% | 0% | 2% | -7% | 7% | 9% | 11% | 9% | 0% | Return on equityROE |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $65M | $52M | $64M | $68M | $38M | $31M | $82M | $77M | $81M | $99M | $126M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $4M | $4M | $3M | $4M | $4M | $2M | $5M | $5M | $6M | $8M | $8M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $3M | $3M | $2M | $2M | $4M | $3M | $3M | $2M | $4M | $2M | $2M | InventoryInvent. |
| $9M | $11M | $10M | $9M | $10M | $9M | $12M | $10M | $11M | $10M | $10M | Accounts payablePayables |
| ($2M) | ($4M) | ($5M) | ($2M) | ($3M) | ($4M) | ($4M) | ($3M) | ($947K) | ($237K) | ($237K) | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $76M | $63M | $139M | $78M | $48M | $52M | $105M | $121M | $92M | $197M | $197M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $81M | $79M | $103M | $67M | $63M | $59M | $57M | $39M | $44M | $21M | $21M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 0.9× | 0.8× | 1.3× | 1.2× | 0.8× | 0.9× | 1.9× | 3.1× | 2.1× | 9.3× | 9.3× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $1.0B | $996M | $1.0B | $954M | $944M | $799M | $822M | $697M | $732M | $712M | $712M | Total assetsAssets |
| $398M | $385M | $413M | $366M | $352M | $294M | $277M | $124M | $85M | $0 | $0 | Total debtDebt |
| $333M | $333M | $349M | $298M | $314M | $262M | $195M | $46M | $4M | ($99M) | ($126M) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 0.5× | 0.9× | 0.5× | 1.0× | 1.7× | -2.4× | 2.7× | 4.6× | 6.6× | 24.6× | 24.6× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $574M | $573M | $561M | $559M | $565M | $475M | $518M | $550M | $627M | $690M | $690M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 39.8M | 39.8M | 39.9M | 39.8M | 38.4M | 37.9M | 37.2M | 37.2M | 35.3M | 35.9M | 37.2M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $3.62 | $3.88 | $4.12 | $3.62 | $3.78 | $3.97 | $4.10 | $3.85 | $4.73 | $4.82 | $4.66 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-0.20 | $-0.03 | $-0.31 | $0.05 | $0.31 | $-0.93 | $0.92 | $1.39 | $1.98 | $1.69 | $0.07 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-0.50 | $-0.21 | $-1.77 | $0.70 | $0.10 | $0.42 | $1.14 | $2.08 | $-0.08 | $2.36 | $2.28 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-0.50 | $-0.21 | $-1.77 | $0.70 | $0.10 | $0.42 | $1.14 | $2.08 | $-0.08 | $2.36 | $2.28 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $1.41 | $1.52 | $2.72 | $0.08 | $1.25 | $0.67 | $0.65 | $0.00 | $3.00 | $0.01 | $0.01 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $14.41 | $14.41 | $14.08 | $14.05 | $14.72 | $12.54 | $13.91 | $14.76 | $17.73 | $19.23 | $18.56 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +3.2%/yr | +5.0%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | — | +86.7%/yr |
| EPS | — | +40.2%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −41.4%/yr | −60.9%/yr |
| Book value / share | +3.3%/yr | +5.5%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
7%low FY2021
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$85Mowner earningsvs.$61Mnet incomelow FY2018
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2016FY2025
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2025 the business turned $61M of profit into $85M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $61M | $70M | $52M | $34M | ($35M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$25M | +$26M | +$24M | +$28M | +$37M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$718K | +$8M | +$2M | +$4M | +$39M |
| Cash from operations | $85M | $104M | $77M | $67M | $41M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$412K | −$106M | −$85K | −$24M | −$25M |
| Owner earnings | $85M | ($3M) | $77M | $42M | $16M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 49% | -2% | 54% | 28% | 11% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position .
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? 24.6×ComfortableOperating income $55M ÷ interest expense $2M
What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
- Net cash, debt-freeCash $99M + ST investments $27M − debt $0
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $126M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle10-yr median, range -3%–7%; 7% latest = NOPAT $44M ÷ invested capital $591MIndustry peers: median 4%
What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 7% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Thin through the cycle10-yr median margin, range -43%–54%; latest $85M = operating cash $85M − maintenance capex $412KIndustry peers: median 12%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 49% of revenue this year, a 3% median across 10 years.
- Are earnings backed by cash? 33.19×Cash-backedCash from ops $85M ÷ net income $3M
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Reinvests most of itDividends + buybacks $6M ÷ Owner Earnings $85M
What this means
Of $85M Owner Earnings, $6M (7%) went back to shareholders, $4M dividends, $2M buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.02×HarvestingCapex $412K ÷ depreciation $25M
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 5 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $173M
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 9.30×
What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt PassDebt ≤ working capital · $0 vs $175M WC
What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Earnings stability MissA profit every year (10-yr record) · 4 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · none paid
What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Earnings growth —Earnings +33% over the record · —
What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $1.64/share (latest year $0.07), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $18.56/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2016–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 6 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs
What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin 7% → 33% (3-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 7% early to 33% lately, median 15% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Worst year 2021 · −20.6% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −1.1%/yr
What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
- How management talks about it Promotional
What this means
The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2025Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
Current assets$197M
- Cash & short-term investments$126M
- Receivables$8M
- Inventory$2M
- Other current assets$61M
Current liabilities$21M
- Accounts payable$10M
- Other current liabilities$11M
Current ratio9.30×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio9.21×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio5.94×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$175Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$690Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$175MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$105K$105K of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$6Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $583M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$432M · 74%
- Buybacks$29M · 5%
- Retained (debt / cash)$122M · 21%
- Returned to owners$29M
19% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $29M as buybacks.
- Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $398M and cash and short-term investments rose $61M.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $29M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count−6.6%
The diluted count fell from 40M to 37M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
- Return on what it retained59%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($145M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $86M, so each retained $1 added about 0.59 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why StealthGas Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.
None of the 5 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.
Each test came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did the share count rise anyway?
- Did debt outgrow the business?
- Did reported profit become cash?
- Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?≈$17M · 10% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“For the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, we had two customers and two customers, respectively, that accounted for more than 10% of our total revenues.”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Marine Shipping
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KEXKirby | $3.4B | — | 7.7% | 4% | 10% |
| MATXMatson | $3.3B | 96% | 11.4% | 11% | 12% |
| TDWTidewater Inc. | $1.4B | — | -12.5% | -6% | 3% |
| INSWInternational Seaways Inc. Common Stock | $843M | — | 12.3% | 3% | 33% |
| PANLPangaea Logistics Solutions Ltd. | $632M | — | 7.7% | 10% | 10% |
| LPGDorian LPG Ltd. | $482M | — | 35.2% | 7% | 38% |
| GNKGenco Shipping & Trading Limited | $342M | — | -1.1% | -0% | 31% |
| GASSStealthGas Inc. | $173M | — | 15.6% | 2% | 7% |
| Group median | — | — | 9.6% | 3% | 11% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFEnter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. StealthGas Inc.'s US listing is the ordinary share itself. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed.
Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what StealthGas Inc. has delivered.
StealthGas Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
$
Through the cycle, StealthGas Inc. earns about $11M on its 6.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 49.0% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+9%/yr
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
P/B—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $85M on 37M shares outstanding, per the 20-F cover, as of 2025-12-31; net cash $126M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "StealthGas Inc. (GASS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/GASS, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← GAMB its page in the Manual GAU →
Industry order: ← FRO the Marine Shipping chapter GLBS →