Dallas, Texas 01/09/2014 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) is a $1.65 billion market capped Greece based shipping firm which provides transportation services to crude oil producers and other dry bulk cargo transport companies. It also owns and operates deep sea drilling ships through which it offers consultancy and oil extraction services to oil producers across the globe.
In the past week of trading the stock of this shipping firm posted close to 13.1 percent drop in its market value. This big dip in the investor confidence in the stock was linked to the December 5 decision by the firm to suspend its previously announced sale of close to $200 million worth common shares. This common stock sale had been necessitated by the firm’s urgent need to raise working capital of close to $150 million for its operations in 2014.
On January 6, DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) had announced that it would be restarting the sales process to raise $200 million in the form of common shares stock via its sales agent Evercore Group LLC. This diversified shipping firm has been struggling in the recent past to generate profits as the overall economic scenario was weak, thus impacting its ability to generate cash flow via is bulk cargo transport business. Readers should note that the deep see Oil and gas industry has been hit hard in U.S thanks to the sudden pickup in demand for shale gas. These operational challenges has led to DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) posting net loss of $328 million in the past 12 months. In the same period, it had attracted sales of $1.34 billion even as its quarter on quarter sales showed flat growth.
In spite of these challenges, the stock of DryShips Inc. (NASDAQ:DRYS) had exhibited strong growth over the past six months. It has risen by close to 121 percent in value during trading in the past two quarters.
