← All companies ← NBIX Manual NBTB → ← LSE Oilfield Services & Equipment NE →
NBR, Nabors Industries
Nabors owns and operates one of the world's largest land-based drilling rig fleets and is a provider of offshore platform rigs in the United States and numerous international markets.
Nabors also supplies performance software, tubular running services, managed pressure drilling services and innovative technologies for both its own rig fleet and those operated by third parties.
With operations in over 20 countries, we are a global provider of drilling and drilling-related services for land-based and offshore oil and natural gas wells.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 22% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be. 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
- Gross margin has run about 37% and operating margin about 1.7% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −8.0% 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. Capital spending runs about 15% of sales, below what it charges for depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on the commodity price, and the cost to lift a barrel. 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 5 years). By owner earnings: roughly 4% 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 10-K →59% of revenue comes from outside the United States.
- International59%$1.9B
- United States41%$1.3B
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 | |||||||||||
| $2.2B | $2.6B | $3.1B | $3.0B | $2.1B | $2.0B | $2.7B | $3.0B | $2.9B | $3.2B | $3.2B | RevenueRevenue |
| 40% | 33% | 35% | 37% | 38% | 36% | 37% | 40% | — | — | 46% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 10% | 10% | 9% | 9% | 10% | 11% | 9% | 8% | 9% | 10% | 10% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | 2% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| ($118M) | ($142M) | $59M | $89M | ($171M) | ($81M) | $44M | $434M | $417M | $471M | $465M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −5.3% | −5.5% | 1.9% | 2.9% | −8.0% | −4.0% | 1.7% | 14.4% | 14.2% | 14.8% | 14.4% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($1.0B) | ($547M) | ($641M) | ($703M) | ($806M) | ($569M) | ($350M) | ($12M) | ($176M) | $287M | $238M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $532M | $63M | $326M | $685M | $350M | $429M | $501M | $638M | $581M | $693M | $719M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $872M | $843M | $867M | $876M | $854M | $693M | $665M | $645M | $633M | $649M | $651M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $658M | ($265M) | $73M | $487M | $277M | $285M | $170M | ($11M) | $108M | ($266M) | ($194M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $395M | $574M | $459M | $428M | $196M | $234M | $373M | $541M | $568M | $716M | $716M | CapexCapex |
| 17.8% | 22.4% | 15.0% | 14.1% | 9.2% | 11.6% | 14.1% | 18.0% | 19.4% | 22.5% | 22.2% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $136M | ($512M) | ($133M) | $257M | $154M | $195M | $128M | $97M | $14M | ($23M) | $3M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 6.1% | −20.0% | −4.4% | 8.4% | 7.2% | 9.7% | 4.8% | 3.2% | 0.5% | −0.7% | 0.1% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $136M | ($512M) | ($133M) | $257M | $154M | $195M | $128M | $97M | $14M | ($23M) | $3M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 6.1% | −20.0% | −4.4% | 8.4% | 7.2% | 9.7% | 4.8% | 3.2% | 0.5% | −0.7% | 0.1% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $22M | $0 | $21M | $3M | — | — | — | — | — | $84M | $84M | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $51M | $69M | — | — | $23M | $7M | $65K | $194K | $87K | — | $87K | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| -1% | -2% | — | — | -4% | -2% | — | — | — | 14% | 0% | ROICROIC |
| -32% | -19% | -24% | -35% | -70% | -96% | -95% | -4% | -130% | 49% | 42% | Return on equityROE |
| −33% | −21% | — | — | −72% | −98% | −95% | −4% | −131% | — | 42% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $295M | $365M | $482M | $452M | $482M | $991M | $452M | $1.1B | $397M | $941M | $501M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $508M | $698M | $756M | $453M | $363M | $288M | $327M | $348M | $388M | $392M | $418M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $104M | $166M | $166M | $176M | $161M | $126M | $128M | $148M | $130M | $95M | $90M | InventoryInvent. |
| $265M | $363M | $393M | $295M | $221M | $254M | $314M | $294M | $321M | $300M | $323M | Accounts payablePayables |
| $347M | $501M | $529M | $334M | $303M | $160M | $141M | $201M | $197M | $186M | $185M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $1.2B | $1.1B | $1.5B | $1.0B | $1.6B | $1000M | $1.6B | $1.2B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $822M | $919M | $832M | $657M | $515M | $525M | $596M | $1.2B | $572M | $993M | $585M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 1.4× | 1.6× | 1.9× | 1.9× | 2.2× | 2.9× | 1.7× | 1.4× | 1.7× | 1.6× | 2.0× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $167M | $173M | $184M | $28M | — | — | — | — | — | — | $28M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $8.2B | $8.4B | $7.9B | $6.8B | $5.5B | $5.5B | $4.7B | $5.3B | $4.5B | $4.8B | $4.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| $3.6B | $4.0B | $3.6B | $3.3B | $3.0B | $3.3B | $2.5B | $3.1B | $2.5B | $2.5B | $71.4B | Total debtDebt |
| $3.3B | $3.7B | $3.1B | $2.9B | $2.5B | $2.3B | $2.1B | $2.1B | $2.1B | $1.6B | $70.9B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| -0.6× | -0.6× | 0.3× | 0.4× | -0.8× | -0.5× | 0.2× | 2.3× | 2.0× | 2.2× | 2.3× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $3.2B | $2.9B | $2.7B | $2.0B | $1.2B | $591M | $369M | $327M | $135M | $591M | $569M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 1.4% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 1.2% | 1.0% | 0.6% | 0.5% | 0.6% | 0.7% | 0.7% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| — | — | — | $156M | $28M | — | — | — | — | — | $28M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 10.4M | 10.5M | 10.0M | 10.5M | 10.6M | 11.4M | 13.3M | 13.7M | 13.8M | 14.4M | 14.2M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $214.88 | $243.65 | $304.79 | $288.53 | $201.54 | $176.86 | $198.83 | $218.80 | $212.28 | $220.91 | $227.40 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-99.32 | $-51.96 | $-63.89 | $-66.64 | $-76.09 | $-49.90 | $-26.24 | $-0.86 | $-12.76 | $19.88 | $16.78 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $13.16 | $-48.62 | $-13.27 | $24.35 | $14.57 | $17.07 | $9.56 | $7.06 | $0.98 | $-1.57 | $0.21 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $13.16 | $-48.62 | $-13.27 | $24.35 | $14.57 | $17.07 | $9.56 | $7.06 | $0.98 | $-1.57 | $0.21 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $4.91 | $6.51 | — | — | $2.13 | $0.65 | $0.00 | $0.01 | $0.01 | — | $0.01 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $38.14 | $54.58 | $45.75 | $40.55 | $18.47 | $20.52 | $27.98 | $39.37 | $41.14 | $49.66 | $50.37 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $313.18 | $276.67 | $269.22 | $187.98 | $108.74 | $51.78 | $27.64 | $23.77 | $9.78 | $40.98 | $40.03 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before 2018 are restated ×1/40 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Share counts before 2025 are restated ×1.5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +0.3%/yr | +1.9%/yr |
| Dividends / share | −56.5%/yr (8-yr) | −76.7%/yr (4-yr) |
| Capital spending / share | +3.0%/yr | +21.9%/yr |
| Book value / share | −20.2%/yr | −17.7%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach 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.
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 reported $287M of profit but ($23M) of owner earnings: $309M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $287M | ($176M) | ($12M) | ($350M) | ($569M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$649M | +$633M | +$645M | +$665M | +$693M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$23M | +$17M | +$16M | +$16M | +$19M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$266M | +$108M | −$11M | +$170M | +$285M |
| Cash from operations | $693M | $581M | $638M | $501M | $429M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$716M | −$568M | −$541M | −$373M | −$234M |
| Owner earnings | ($23M) | $14M | $97M | $128M | $195M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -1% | 0% | 3% | 5% | 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 $23M), owner earnings is nearer ($46M).
Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.
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
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income $471M ÷ interest expense $215M
What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $70.4B · 149.5× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $941M + ST investments $31K − debt $71.4B
What this means
Netting $941M of cash and short-term investments against $71.4B of debt leaves $70.4B owed, about 149.5× a year's operating profit (151.5× 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.
- TightDSO 45 + DIO 19 − DPO 61 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle5-yr median, range -4%–14%; 0% latest = NOPAT $300M ÷ invested capital $71.0BIndustry peers: median 1%
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 5 years (it ran 0% 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 -20%–10%; latest ($23M) = operating cash $693M − maintenance capex $716MIndustry peers: median 4%
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 -1% of revenue this year, a 3% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $23M of SBC) leaves ($46M).
- Cash-backedCash from ops $693M ÷ net income $287M
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?
- No surplus to allocate
What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 1.10×MaintainingCapex $716M ÷ depreciation $649M
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 · 1 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $3.2B
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 NearCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.56×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $71.4B vs $559M 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) · 9 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 · 7 of 10 yrs
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 $2.06/share (latest year $17.96), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $37.02/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 1 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 9 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 −3% → 14% (3-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −3% early to 14% lately, median 2% — 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 2020 · −8.0% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Dividend record paid
What this means
Paid a dividend in 7 of the years on record.
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 the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can 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.
- Cash & short-term investments$501M
- Receivables$418M
- Inventory$90M
- Other current assets$144M
- Debt due within a year$377M
- Accounts payable$323M
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $4.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$4.5B · 93%
- Dividends$150M · 3%
- Buybacks$20M · 0%
- Retained (debt / cash)$143M · 3%
- Returned to owners$169M
54% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $150M as dividends and $20M as buybacks.
- Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $67.8B and cash and short-term investments rose $206M.
- Average price paid for buybacks$154.96
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 0M shares were bought for $20M, about $154.96 each.
- Net change in share count37.1%
The diluted count rose from 10M to 14M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
- Dividend record$0.01/sh
Paid in 7 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 67% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.
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 recordGoodwill 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.
$184M written down across 2 years (2019, 2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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. Petrello | $10.0M | $18.3M | $195M |
| 2022 | Mr. Petrello | $10.8M | $30.1M | $128M |
| 2023 | Mr. Petrello | $10.3M | −$1.9M | $97M |
| 2024 | Mr. Petrello | $12.1M | $11.3M | $14M |
| 2025 | Mr. Petrello | $29.6M | $33.0M | ($23M) |
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 ownership5.3%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$23M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 5% 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 Nabors Industries 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.
3 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.
- Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?37.1%
Diluted shares grew 37.1% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $20M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
- Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$3.6B → $71.4B
Debt rose from $3.6B to $71.4B while owner earnings went from about ($169M) to $29M: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
- 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, $573M 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.
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- 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?≈$970M · 30% of revenue on the largest customer (TTM)
“One customer, Saudi Aramco, accounted for approximately 30%, 31% and 26% of our consolidated operating revenues during the years ended December 31, 2025, 2024 and 2023, respectively, which operating revenues are primarily included in the results of our International Drilling reportable segment.”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Oilfield Services & Equipment
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PTENPatterson-UTI Energy | $4.8B | — | -14.6% | -8% | 9% |
| LBRTLiberty Energy | $4.0B | 22% | 7.1% | 2% | 4% |
| RIGTransocean Ltd (Switzerland) | $4.0B | 37% | -13.7% | -2% | 9% |
| HPHelmerich & Payne | $3.7B | — | 0.7% | -1% | 4% |
| NENoble Corporation plc A | $3.3B | — | 16.2% | 7% | 11% |
| NBRNabors Industries | $3.2B | 37% | 1.8% | -2% | 4% |
| OIIOceaneering International | $2.6B | 12% | 2.6% | 5% | 4% |
| SDRLSeadrill Limited | $1.1B | — | 28.5% | — | -7% |
| Group median | — | 29% | 2.2% | -1% | 4% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Nabors Industries has delivered.
Through the cycle, Nabors Industries earns about $128M on its 4.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −0.7% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
—
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.
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.
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 $3M on 16M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-27; net debt $70.9B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). 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.
Manual order: ← NBIX its page in the Manual NBTB →
Industry order: ← LSE the Oilfield Services & Equipment chapter NE →