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Gold/Mining/Energy : Trico Marine Services (TMAR) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Douglas V. Fant who wrote (198)	3/29/1998 9:53:00 PM
From: Mandeep Bhullar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1153

All, Not sure if you folks have seen this article. First time on this thread and don't own tmar, however, this article caught my attention. WEEKDAY TRADER: Hidden Oil-Service 'Gems' -3: Low Multiples Another small oil service company that some say stands out from the crowd is Trico Marine Services Inc. (TMAR), the second largest provider of supply boats in the Gulf of Mexico. That's because Trico Marine shares have been beaten down to a "ridiculous" multiple of seven times First Call's mean earnings estimates of $2.75 per share for 1998 and only six times the $3.46 per share consensus for next year, asserts James Kaplan, a fund manager at J.L. Kaplan Associates in Boston. (When was the last time you saw single-digit P/E ratios for anything?) Wednesday, the stock closed at $20.3125, way below its 52-week high of $45.50. Kaplan's fund recently bought more than 400,000 shares of the company, and he isn't the only one who sees value there. Last month, Michael Price's Mutual Shares fund, owned by Franklin Resources Inc. (BEN), disclosed that it owned 1.88 million shares of Trico, a bit more than 10% of the company's outstanding stock. And Trico Marine insiders - who were net sellers of the stock when it was flying high - began buying this month, too. Kaplan claims that Trico Marine is selling at too big a discount to the group's bellwether, Tidewater Inc. (TDW)which trades at 11-times 1998 estimated earnings and at 10-times the consensus for next year. "[If] you sold off Trico Marine's boats one by one at current prices, you'd get a value of $32 per share for the company, " Kaplan asserts. Of course,nobody's planning to do that soon. And if the oil-producing countries' agreement to cut out doesn't hold up, oil service companies are bound to be decimated in a new wave of price cutting. But if the going doesn't get too rough, Tesco and Trico Marine could offer some opportunities for investors who aren't afraid of what could be a rocky ride. Regards, Mandeep