DryShips (DRYS) Declares $2.5M Quarterly Dividend

This reminds me about 10 years ago one of you jokers on here made (what I thought) was a good case for a tanker called Top Tankers (TOPS). At the time it was called TOPT, and the guy that posted it really made it sound like it was doing great. It had something like the 2nd largest fleet behind FRO at the time and they seemed to be growing fast. Just like this post, the OP talked about the big dividend it just paid.

So me, like an idiot, decided to drop 17 large into it simply as a buy and hold. First red flag...they cut the dividend right away. 2nd red flag, they dry-docked half their fleet. The CEO named Pistiolis, seemed to be TRYING to run this company into the ground, so I bailed with a $2k loss.

I kept an eye on the company though and then I start seeing the CEO making what I think are just more horrible horrible decisions. Like you could literally pick a bum off the street to make better company decisions than this guy. He starts doing reverse split after reverse split after reverse split. Had I held that stock until today, my $17,500 would be worth 66 cents. Thats right...CENTS!

A lot of odd stuff, even now, seems to be going on with that company. I think they had that prop shop Ronin Capital doing something shady for them last year, but I've not really looked into it too much. I just know TOPS had a volume of around 10k shares traded per day, then Ronin came in and became a beneficial owner and volume was up in the 10s of millions with them regularly exercising options and selling off.

It's basically just a curiosity for me now to try to figure out what the CEO was/is actually doing.

The other tanker companies seem to also have some oddball behavior too. Like FRO's founder (Fredrikson, i think his name is?) spending 100s of millions of his own money to keep it afloat while at the same time selling off its best assets to his new tanker company. It's just a weird world in tankers.
 
peilthetraveler said:
This reminds me about 10 years ago one of you jokers on here made (what I thought) was a good case for a tanker called Top Tankers (TOPS). At the time it was called TOPT, and the guy that posted it really made it sound like it was doing great. It had something like the 2nd largest fleet behind FRO at the time and they seemed to be growing fast. Just like this post, the OP talked about the big dividend it just paid.

So me, like an idiot, decided to drop 17 large into it simply as a buy and hold. First red flag...they cut the dividend right away. 2nd red flag, they dry-docked half their fleet. The CEO named Pistiolis, seemed to be TRYING to run this company into the ground, so I bailed with a $2k loss.

I kept an eye on the company though and then I start seeing the CEO making what I think are just more horrible horrible decisions. Like you could literally pick a bum off the street to make better company decisions than this guy. He starts doing reverse split after reverse split after reverse split. Had I held that stock until today, my $17,500 would be worth 66 cents. Thats right...CENTS!

A lot of odd stuff, even now, seems to be going on with that company. I think they had that prop shop Ronin Capital doing something shady for them last year, but I've not really looked into it too much. I just know TOPS had a volume of around 10k shares traded per day, then Ronin came in and became a beneficial owner and volume was up in the 10s of millions with them regularly exercising options and selling off.

It's basically just a curiosity for me now to try to figure out what the CEO was/is actually doing.

The other tanker companies seem to also have some oddball behavior too. Like FRO's founder (Fredrikson, i think his name is?) spending 100s of millions of his own money to keep it afloat while at the same time selling off its best assets to his new tanker company. It's just a weird world in tankers.
More...

Funny thing is your TOPS is part of the DRYS equation...GE has made attempts at buying it and its pop, last month, was due towards a rumor of GE buying it. TOPS, as you expected diluted, and I believe Kalani is involved there as well. What I learned is while shipping is a necessary sector those companies are barely scraping by. When times are good they overbuild and when things go bad they sell-off or dry dock their fleet. You're right it is Frederickson and while he was, the most successful, to keep FRO afloat he had to shove money in twice, I think, last time was to take, the valuable assets, and leave it with a shell of itself. I couldn't tell you who is profitable though, perhaps Diana Shipping, as that one always seemed to do well but a sector with not enough reward for, the risk, so one to avoid IMO. Thanks for posting...good insight!
 
It is great at creating drama, made some fun money during its pop last year but never have cursed a single company more over the years.
 
To think since I posted, it has gone straight down, did ANOTHER reverse split of 7:1 taking it from .96 to $6.72 straight back down to $2.40 today, it was $4, just last week. George Economou is the smartest scam artist, unlike Madoff, he's telling you he's taking your money.lol
 
So who do we blame for this happening? The investors or the exchange?
Does the exchange have any duty to investors? Do they care?
 
Stymie said:
So who do we blame for this happening? The investors or the exchange?
Does the exchange have any duty to investors? Do they care?
More...

Those are good questions as it's not cut and dry as you'd think! On one hand, investors are responsible for their own investments and GE tells them he'll dilute them. He's a great salesman though and will sell it as look at these new ships to bring in tons of money. On the other hand, the exchange should know he puts, the risk, on DRYS shareholders, leverages them up, sells them overpriced ship options from his private Cardiff, charges the "management fees" and after, the 1st RS, should stop listing it to keep dumb shareholders from themselves. They have been so destroyed they average down so instead of a breakeven of $100, its $8, a number it still won't hit. Down 99.99% in a year is ridiculous, down 35-40% in the past 2wks is just as bad. Does one expect, an exchange, to know a CEO is screwing over, the public company, for the benefit of his private one, probably not but if blatant as, the past 6mos. have been, then yeah they should take action. I haven't seen a guy game, the system, like he has. Of course, they don't care, for the big guys to win, the little guy has to get destroyed...rarely are they proactive but reactive. DRYS, for the time being, as he spent, the cash, has hundreds of millions, but cause of GE it's trading at a fraction of CASH much less, the value, of ships as scrap. No one can come in to unlock value as he controls it with 100K to 1 vote preferred shares and if worthless, he owns, the debt, so can take it either way. So as I said good questions as this shady SOB is doing it all legally.
 
algofy said:
Don't worry, they will do a reverse stock split soon and get that price back up.
More...

That is a given, they had $119M left of the current, $200M deal, and it was taking forever but instead of GE dropping, a few million, to bolster, the price and dilute into that he's like "F it", I'm going to do a reverse split...4th this year and 7th since last year. A share of $120, a decade ago, is now $200M, 1.6M to 1.lol While he does have a $2B shelf offering out there so could dilute this for years to come, it could be liquidated for many multiples of its market cap. It has $600M-$800M in assets, at least, as it still has hundreds of millions in cash, yet trades for under $20M today. Just a crazy yet fascinating train wreck!haha
 
This is fucking unfathomable, how is this allowed to go on?

if you ever buy DRYS under any circumstance you are a donkey, i dont really need to explain it beyond that but for some reason it showed up on my list of the markets top gainers today. I can never find shares of this thing to short, but this is as close to free money as it gets if you can short it, all he does is raise money reverse split raise money reverse split, its unfathomable that the clowns at the SEC and FINRA allow this to happen. Even the people who got scammed by Madoff got more than 0.00001% back.

drys-png.175249
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top