FY18 result - North of 40 cents seems reasonable, page-8

The only times this stock has traded at 8x EV/EBITDA was:

1. During the absolute peak of the commodity boom, when you couldn't get hold of cranes, not for love nor money, and when BOL was generating $100m pa in EBITDA, and

2. In 2015 and 2016, when the company had lots of debt and was making very little EBITDA

Outside of those times, the stock's EV/EBITDA multiple has averaged between 3x and 6x.

And when that once-in-a-lifetime boom - when people were paying 8x EV/EBITDA multiples - ended, the company nearly went to the wall; the only reason it didn't was that the banks forced them to sell off half the farm.

With that sort of precedent upon which to draw, the market is somewhat too smart to make that same mistake again.




As for your assertion that the business is "under-earning", BOL today has less than half the equipment that it had at the peak of the cycle, and its FY2019 revenue will be more than half of it was at the peak of the cycle. So, I'm not sure on what basis you believe it is "under-earning".