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Global Ship Lease

GSL on NYSE. Deep sea foreign transportation of freight. Market value $1.6bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

This company reports once a year (it is based outside the US), so every figure comes from its annual report for the year to December 2025.

Capital spending looks too small to be complete, so we leave free cash flow out.

Should I look at this?

Worth a closer look

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

Nothing stood out in the numbers we check.

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
annual report to December 2025
n/a

We could not compute this from the filings.

Price to profit
annual report to December 2025
4.7×cheap

You pay 4.7 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
14.9%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 15 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 89 of 100. Price score: 83 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$45.50 a share, 67% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $27.28 to $46.57.

Dividend: 4.7% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

n/a
n/a
0.4
n/a
n/a
20212022202320242025
Revenue
$448m$646m$675m$711m$766m
Operating margin
53.0%54.9%50.9%53.3%56.8%
Debt to equity
1.520.980.700.470.39
Shares outstanding
0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive1 of 1 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)5 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.39× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 22.1% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
16 March 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
n/a

Who owns it

2 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 2 last quarter. 206 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

2 investors own more than 5%.

  • Shipping Participations Inc.
    Insider or founder
    at least 7.7%
    (filed with 2 related holders)
    Since 9 April 2025
    What they said

    Mr. Giouroukos serves as the Executive Chairman of the Issuer. Accordingly, the Reporting Persons may have influence on the corporate activities of the Issuer, including activities which may relate to items described in subparagraphs (a) through (j) of Item 4 of Schedule 13D.…

    Read the filing
  • Donald Smith & Co.
    Passive investor
    at least 4.4%−1.4 pts
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 31 March 2026

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 5 sold $5m.

  • Helfer Ulrike
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    30 September 2026
    Shares
    4,000
    Price
    $44.82
    Value
    $179,274
  • Psaropoulos Anastasios
    Chief Financial Officer
    Sold
    Date
    27 August 2026
    Shares
    48,330
    Price
    $45.02
    Value
    $2m
  • Psaropoulos Anastasios
    Chief Financial Officer
    Sold
    Date
    26 August 2026
    Shares
    1,670
    Price
    $45.03
    Value
    $75,200
  • Lister Thomas Arthur
    Chief Executive Officer
    Sold
    Date
    26 August 2026
    Shares
    30,000
    Price
    $44.26
    Value
    $1m
  • Neugeborn Yoram
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    14 July 2026
    Shares
    3,000
    Price
    $41.13
    Value
    $123,382
  • Giannopoulos Georgios
    Chief Compliance Officer
    Sold
    Date
    7 April 2026
    Shares
    7,692
    Price
    $38.51
    Value
    $296,219
  • Psaropoulos Anastasios
    Chief Financial Officer
    Sold
    Date
    25 March 2026
    Shares
    23,173
    Price
    $39.00
    Value
    $903,747

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

Global Ship Lease doesn’t file a US annual report (10-K), so we haven’t checked it.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.