$DNOW: the boring distributor that could double on 2029 numbers | Firebird Management

YAVP #413

DNOW spun out of National Oilwell Varco at $35 in late 2014. A year later it was $13. Today it is around $16. Steve Gorelik's argument is that ten years of that chart is one long headwind rather than a broken business: 1,800 US rigs at the spin, under 600 now, global oil and gas investment 40% below 2014 in real dollars, and DNOW still grew margins and bought companies at 4 to 5x EBITDA the whole way through. Rigs have started ticking back up. The MRC Global merger brings $75m of synergies to two businesses that earned $325m of EBITDA apart in 2024. Management has soft-targeted $350m of EBITDA for 2027 against roughly a $3.5B enterprise value, which Steve gets to about $300m of free cash flow on a $3B market cap.

My pushback is that 10x is not deep value, and the double comes almost entirely from multiple expansion back to the 5 to 6% free cash flow yield the market used to pay. Why is 10x the wrong number and not 12 or 14? We also get into the acquisitive compounder paradox, whether the incremental drilling actually shows up in US shale or somewhere else, the Oracle implementation they inherited from MRC and why they are now running it alongside SAP on purpose, the $50m of stock they bought back in the middle of that mess, and whether a business private equity would happily lever to four or six turns belongs in the public market at all. Steve's 2029 case is $30 to $32 per share.

---

This podcast is sponsored by fiscal.ai

Fiscal AI is a modern data terminal built for investors who want an institutional-grade platform without the complexity. I use Fiscal AI to research my holdings, find new investment ideas, and deepen my analysis. It’s fast, intuitive, and has genuinely helped my research process. Check it out at fiscal.ai/yav for 15% off any of their paid plans.

---

Please follow the podcast on Spotify, iTunes, or YouTube! And please be sure to rate / review the podcast if you enjoy it, or share it with someone else who would enjoy it (more listeners is a critical part of the flywheel that keeps this Substack and podcast going!).

Transcript for paid subs begins below (The initial transcript is AI-generated and is replaced with a professionally edited version when available)

Disclaimer: Nothing on this podcast or on this blog is investing or financial advice; please see our full disclaimer here. The transcript below is from a third party transcription service; it’s entirely possible there are some errors in the transcript.