Wednesday, November 4, 2026

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The Buyback Shows Up (ESRT Q3 2026)

Empire State Realty Trust repurchased $85.8 million of shares at $4.56 each, using 1359 Broadway sale proceeds to fund buybacks and debt reduction.

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@StableBread 4 clicks

Fajasy on X

Curtiss-Wright $CW is BWX Technologies’ $BWXT closest comp, and $BWXT trades below it on every measure but FCF yield. Since naval propulsion is close to half of $BWXT’s revenue, its closest comps are other Navy suppliers. Small-reactor developers like Oklo $OKLO and NuScale $SMR wouldn’t work anyway, as they lost $73.2M and $64.0M from operations in Q2 2026, leaving no EBITDA multiple to compare against. So I decided to compare $BWXT with four listed companies building or equipping the same Navy submarines and carriers: → Curtiss-Wright $CW: Pumps, valves, and turbines for the same submarines and carriers, plus reactor coolant pumps for Westinghouse’s AP1000. → Leonardo DRS $DRS: Naval power and propulsion systems, including electric drive equipment for the Columbia-class. → General Dynamics $GD: Builds the submarines through its Electric Boat unit. → Huntington Ingalls $HII: Builds the carriers and submarines at its Newport News shipyard. Here’s how they compare on 2026 estimates (P/E, EV/EBITDA, EV/sales, FCF yield): → $BWXT: 30.7x, 22.5x, 3.95x, 2.64% → $CW: 36.3x, 24.8x, 5.54x, 2.90% → $DRS: 26.9x, 18.4x, 2.48x, 2.78% → $GD: 19.7x, 13.9x, 1.68x, 5.34% → $HII: n/a, 12.3x, 0.98x, 5.28% Note: CW’s, GD’s, and HII’s EBITDA is operating income plus D&A from company guidance, since they don’t guide EBITDA. $BWXT trades above the two shipbuilders, which earn thinner margins. HII guides shipbuilding operating margins of 6.0-6.5% and GD 10.5% overall, vs. $BWXT’s 12.6% GAAP operating margin in 2025. A reasonable EV/EBITDA range for $BWXT is 16-24x, between its own end-2023 multiple and Curtiss-Wright’s today.
@convequity

Convequity on X

Our DCFs usually assume a tech company settles into 3% growth forever. Very few ever do. We forecast growth for several years, then step it down linearly to a 3% sustainable (terminal) growth rate at the end of the explicit forecast period. Most of our valuations are tech stocks, so we use 3%: if the broad US economy grows ~2-2.5%, a frontier company presumably grows faster. But tech has little middle ground of steady single-digit growth. Companies grow double digits, or get acquired, or their revenue declines, often until they get acquired. $CSCO and $IBM are rare exceptions. Huge installed bases, enterprise lock-in and services carried them through their single-digit stretches. An industrial that has grown ~3% a year for decades is a very different dynamic. It has a mature market, a few main players plus some smaller ones, not that much competition and no real danger of being acquired. Its moats are physical; its demand saturates rather than disappears. Tech advances civilization and pushes the frontier of productivity and what humans can do. That attracts more competition and more players wanting a piece. We think three things squeeze out the middle. Products get replaced by the next platform rather than maturing. Near-zero marginal cost lets the scale leader undercut on price and outspend on R&D once growth slows. And the market marks slow growers down into cheap targets for buyers who cut costs and fold them in. So setting a sustainable growth rate for tech is theoretically more challenging. Our 3% is really a bet that the company reaches a durable, mature state. A more honest framing is scenarios: durable compounder, acquired, or decline. 3% is a blend of outcomes, none of which looks like 3%.

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AMRZ · long

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