Share count
103Mpeak FY2022
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SB, SAFE BULKERS, INC.
Marine Shipping capital-intensive
A capital-intensive business, run on heavy physical assets that must be kept working and earn a return above what they cost to maintain.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$39M
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
The business in brief
What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Whether the heavy assets earn more than they cost to keep. What decides it: the return on the capital sunk into them, how much of the capex is merely standing still versus growing, and what a downturn does to a fixed-cost base. Here the balance sheet is the defense and cyclicality the enemy.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
4%low FY2017
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2016FY2025
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income $70M ÷ interest expense $25M
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? $402M · 5.7× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $142M + ST investments $5M − debt $549M
What this means
Netting $146M of cash and short-term investments against $549M of debt leaves $402M owed, about 5.7× a year's operating profit (7.8× 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.
- 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 -6%–16%; 4% latest = NOPAT $55M ÷ invested capital $1.2BIndustry 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 4% 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.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 12%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $102M ÷ net income $90M
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?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
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 MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $39M
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× · 2.90×
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 · $549M vs $132M 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) · 3 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 $0.70/share (latest year $0.88), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $8.12/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.
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$201M
- Cash & short-term investments$146M
- Receivables$5M
- Inventory$19M
- Other current assets$31M
Current liabilities$69M
- Debt due within a year$45M
- Other current liabilities$24M
Current ratio2.90×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.63×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio2.12×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$132Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$45M due · $146M cash
covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Dec 31, 2025 balance sheet
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$831Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($372M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$549Mno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone
Deferred revenue$5Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
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% |
| SBSAFE BULKERS, INC. | $39M | — | 181.4% | 4% | — |
| Group median | — | — | 9.6% | 4% | — |
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. SAFE BULKERS, INC.'s US listing is the ordinary share itself. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed.
SAFE BULKERS, INC. is profitable, but its owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
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The assumptions
Enter a price to run it.
Owner earnings it must reach—
Margin the price demands—
Owner-earnings margin today—
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.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "SAFE BULKERS, INC. (SB), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SB, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← SAP its page in the Manual SBLK →
Industry order: ← RCL the Marine Shipping chapter SBLK →