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KEX, Kirby

Marine Shipping capital-intensive Cyclical

Kirby Corporation is the nation's largest domestic tank barge operator, transporting bulk liquid products throughout the Mississippi River System, on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, and coastwise along all three United States coasts.

The Company, through its marine transportation segment ("KMT"), transports petrochemicals, black oil, refined petroleum products, and agricultural chemicals by tank barge.

AND P ROPERTY The Company, through its subsidiaries, conducts operations in two reportable business segments: marine transportation and distribution and services.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

KEX · Kirby

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$3.4B

+3.0% YoY · 9% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.4B 5-yr avg $3.0B

Operating margin 14.6% 5-yr avg 6.6%

ROIC 9% 5-yr avg 4%

Owner-earnings margin 15% 5-yr avg 11%

Free cash flow margin 15% 5-yr avg 9%

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 KMT (58%) and Distribution and Services (42%).
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 6.9% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −19% and 15% 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. Inventory runs near 14% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside 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 4%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 2 segments, the largest KMT at 58%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

KMT58%$1.9B
Distribution and Services42%$1.4B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. 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	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$1.8B	$2.2B	$3.0B	$2.8B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$3.1B	$3.3B	$3.4B	$3.4B	RevenueRevenue
10%	10%	10%	10%	12%	12%	11%	11%	10%	11%	11%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$247M	$94M	$155M	$242M	($421M)	($258M)	$193M	$335M	$399M	$496M	$498M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
14.0%	4.2%	5.2%	8.5%	−19.4%	−11.5%	6.9%	10.8%	12.2%	14.8%	14.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$141M	$313M	$78M	$142M	($273M)	($247M)	$122M	$223M	$287M	$355M	$360M	Net incomeNet inc.
38%	—	31%	25%	—	—	26%	24%	21%	25%	24%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$416M	$353M	$347M	$512M	$445M	$322M	$294M	$540M	$756M	$670M	$731M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$201M	$203M	$225M	$220M	$220M	$214M	$201M	$211M	$240M	$264M	$269M	DepreciationDeprec.
$62M	($174M)	$24M	$136M	$483M	$339M	($43M)	$91M	$214M	$34M	$83M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$231M	$177M	$302M	$248M	$148M	$98M	$173M	$402M	$343M	$264M	$234M	CapexCapex
13.0%	8.0%	10.2%	8.7%	6.8%	4.4%	6.2%	13.0%	10.5%	7.9%	6.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$185M	$176M	$122M	$264M	$297M	$224M	$122M	$329M	$516M	$406M	$497M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
10.4%	8.0%	4.1%	9.3%	13.7%	10.0%	4.4%	10.6%	15.8%	12.1%	14.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$185M	$176M	$45M	$264M	$297M	$224M	$122M	$138M	$414M	$406M	$497M	Free cash flowFCF
10.4%	8.0%	1.5%	9.3%	13.7%	10.0%	4.4%	4.5%	12.7%	12.1%	14.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$137M	$470M	$534M	$0	$355M	$9M	$4M	$38M	$78M	$116M	$100M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$2M	$0	$776K	$0	$0	$0	$23M	$113M	$175M	$354M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
5%	2%	2%	4%	-7%	-5%	4%	6%	8%	9%	9%	ROICROIC
6%	10%	2%	4%	-9%	-9%	4%	7%	9%	10%	11%	Return on equityROE
6%	10%	2%	4%	−9%	−9%	4%	7%	9%	10%	11%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$6M	$20M	$8M	$25M	$80M	$35M	$81M	$33M	$74M	$79M	$58M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$297M	$452M	$418M	$379M	$315M	$418M	$483M	$527M	$490M	$473M	$536M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$185M	$316M	$507M	$351M	$310M	$331M	$462M	$454M	$394M	$398M	$418M	InventoryInvent.
$135M	$222M	$278M	$207M	$163M	$199M	$278M	$269M	$251M	$219M	$263M	Accounts payablePayables
$348M	$546M	$647M	$524M	$462M	$550M	$667M	$712M	$632M	$653M	$691M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$633M	$957M	$1.1B	$918M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$358M	$480M	$608M	$514M	$466M	$544M	$642M	$676M	$735M	$707M	$717M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.8×	2.0×	1.8×	1.8×	2.2×	1.8×	1.9×	1.7×	1.5×	1.5×	1.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$598M	$935M	$954M	$954M	$658M	$439M	$439M	$439M	$439M	$439M	$439M	GoodwillGoodwill
$4.3B	$5.1B	$5.9B	$6.1B	$5.9B	$5.4B	$5.6B	$5.7B	$5.9B	$6.0B	$6.1B	Total assetsAssets
$723M	$992M	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.0B	$867M	$912M	$979M	Total debtDebt
$717M	$972M	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.1B	$996M	$976M	$792M	$833M	$921M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
14.0×	4.4×	3.3×	4.3×	-8.6×	-6.1×	4.3×	6.4×	8.1×	10.7×	10.8×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.4B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$3.4B	$3.1B	$2.9B	$3.0B	$3.2B	$3.4B	$3.4B	$3.4B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.7%	0.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.7%	0.7%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	$3M	—	$388M	$219M	—	—	—	—	$219M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
53.5M	55.4M	59.7M	59.9M	59.9M	60.1M	60.3M	59.9M	58.4M	56.0M	54.0M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$33.09	$40.00	$49.77	$47.38	$36.24	$37.41	$46.16	$51.65	$55.97	$60.02	$63.36	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.64	$5.66	$1.31	$2.38	$-4.55	$-4.11	$2.03	$3.72	$4.91	$6.33	$6.66	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.45	$3.18	$2.04	$4.40	$4.95	$3.72	$2.01	$5.50	$8.85	$7.24	$9.21	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.45	$3.18	$0.76	$4.40	$4.95	$3.72	$2.01	$2.31	$7.09	$7.24	$9.21	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$4.32	$3.20	$5.06	$4.14	$2.47	$1.63	$2.86	$6.71	$5.87	$4.72	$4.33	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$45.02	$56.19	$53.83	$56.23	$51.48	$48.06	$50.44	$53.22	$57.44	$60.32	$63.21	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+6.8%/yr	+10.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+8.6%/yr	+7.9%/yr
EPS	+10.2%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+1.0%/yr	+13.8%/yr
Book value / share	+3.3%/yr	+3.2%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

KMT+1.2%
“KMT’s revenues for 2025 increased 1% compared to 2024 and operating income increased 3%, compared to 2024. The increase in revenues for 2025 was primarily due to higher term pricing in the coastal market and higher term and spot pricing in the inland market during the 2025 first half, partially offset by lower fuel rebills in both the inland and coastal markets.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

56Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

9%low FY2020

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.1×peak FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$406Mowner earningsvs.$355Mnet incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

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 $355M of profit into $406M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$355M

Owner earnings$406M · 12% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$355M	$287M	$223M	$122M	($247M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$264M	+$240M	+$211M	+$201M	+$214M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$18M	+$16M	+$15M	+$14M	+$16M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$34M	+$214M	+$91M	−$43M	+$339M
Cash from operations	$670M	$756M	$540M	$294M	$322M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$264M	−$240M	−$211M	−$173M	−$98M
Owner earnings	$406M	$516M	$329M	$122M	$224M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$102M	−$191M	—	—
Free cash flow	$406M	$414M	$138M	$122M	$224M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	12%	16%	11%	4%	10%

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 . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $18M), owner earnings is nearer $388M.

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.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 10.7×

Comfortable

Operating income $496M ÷ interest expense $46M

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $833M · 1.7× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $79M − debt $912M

What this means
Netting $79M of cash and short-term investments against $912M of debt leaves $833M owed, about 1.7× a year's operating profit (1.8× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 4%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -7%–9%; 9% latest = NOPAT $374M ÷ invested capital $4.2B

Industry peers: median 9%

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 9% 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.
Owner-earnings margin 10%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 4%–16%; latest $406M = operating cash $670M − maintenance capex $264M

Industry 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 12% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $18M of SBC) leaves $388M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.89×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $670M ÷ net income $355M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 87%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $354M ÷ Owner Earnings $406M

What this means
Of $406M Owner Earnings, $354M (87%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $354M buybacks. Net of $18M stock comp, the real buyback was about $337M. 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? 1.00×

Maintaining

Capex $264M ÷ depreciation $264M

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 6 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $3.4B

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.53×

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 Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $912M vs $371M 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 Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 2 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted 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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +62%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
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 $5.38/share (latest year $6.63), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $63.19/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 8 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 2 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 8% → 13% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 8% early to 13% lately, median 7% — 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.
Owner earnings growth +11%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 11% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −19.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +0.5%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The 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 the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can 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$1.1B

Cash & short-term investments$58M
Receivables$536M
Inventory$418M
Other current assets$130M

Current liabilities$717M

Debt due within a year$2M
Accounts payable$263M
Other current liabilities$453M

Current ratio1.59×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.01×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.08×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$425Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$2M due · $58M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+7.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.7× → 1.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$2.9Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$1.2B$202M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$205Mcustomer 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 $4.7B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$2.4B · 51%
Buybacks$667M · 14%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.6B · 34%

Returned to owners$667M
25% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $667M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $667M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count0.9%
The diluted count barely moved (54M to 54M): buybacks roughly offset 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 retained54%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($475M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $256M, so each retained $1 added about 0.54 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.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$469M8% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity13%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$2.0Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $2.4B of capital spent building

$610M written down across 3 years (2018, 2020, 2021): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 30% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Grzebinski	$5.9M	$6.9M	$224M
2022	Mr. Grzebinski	$6.2M	$6.8M	$122M
2023	Mr. Grzebinski	$7.8M	$9.3M	$329M
2024	Mr. Grzebinski	$7.1M	$9.4M	$516M
2025	Mr. Grzebinski	$6.7M	$7.1M	$406M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership0.8%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio66:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$18M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Kirby 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.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 10 years, $1.8B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these 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.

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
CCLCarnival Corp.	$26.6B	38%	15.0%	9%	13%
RCLRoyal Caribbean Cruises	$17.9B	44%	19.4%	7%	22%
NCLHNorwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.	$9.8B	38%	15.7%	9%	11%
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%
Group median	—	—	11.8%	8%	11%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Kirby has delivered.

Kirby’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.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Kirby earns about $343M on its 10.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.1% 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 Normalize · through-cycle ($343M) Net of stock comp (−$20M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

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.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+28%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+10%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

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 $497M on 54M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-07; net debt $921M. 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.

Weigh KEX against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Kirby (KEX), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/KEX, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← KELYB its page in the Manual KEY →

Industry order: ← INSW the Marine Shipping chapter KNOP →