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Valaris

VAL on NYSE. Valaris sells offshore drilling services to oil and gas companies. Market value $5.8bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Energy stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
-0.4%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-0.42 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
25.9×full

You pay 25.9 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
n/a

The filings do not give us enough to work this out.

Quality score: 66 of 100. Price score: 40 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$82.00 a share, 76% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $46.70 to $114.12.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

n/a
-0.1
-0.4
-0.1
0.2
-0.0
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: a shortfall of $24 million in the past 12 months, $203 million in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
n/a$1.6bn$1.8bn$2.4bn$2.4bn
Operating margin
n/a2.3%3.0%14.9%20.1%
Debt to equity
0.510.420.540.480.34
Shares outstanding
0.08bn0.07bn0.07bn0.07bn0.07bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive1 of 4 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.34× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 10.7% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 8% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $539 million last quarter, down 12% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $50 million, down 56% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 11 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, down from 21 cents a year earlier.
  • Over the past 12 months it spent $24 million more cash than it brought in. A year earlier it had $233 million spare.
  • 1% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $546 million more than cash, down from $581 million a year ago.
  • Sales did not grow on a year ago in any of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$643m
December 2024$584m
March 2025$621m
June 2025$615m
September 2025$596m
December 2025$537m
March 2026$465m
June 2026$539m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$65m
December 2024$134m
March 2025-$38m
June 2025$115m
September 2025$188m
December 2025$718m
March 2026-$16m
June 2026$50m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
20 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
5 November 2026

Who owns it

6 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 8 last quarter. 335 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

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

Big holders and activists

6 investors own more than 5%.

  • Transocean Ltd.
    Strategic holder
    18.1%
    Since 9 February 2026
    What they said

    On February 9, 2026, the Reporting Person and Valaris Limited, an exempted company limited by shares incorporated under the laws of Bermuda ("Valaris") (the Reporting Person and Valaris, collectively, the "Parties" and each, a "Party"), entered into a Business Combination…

    Read the filing
  • Famatown Finance Limited
    Strategic holder
    at least 11.2%+0.7 pts
    (filed with 2 related holders)
    Since 9 February 2026
    What they said

    Item 4 is hereby supplemented as follows: On February 9, 2026, the Issuer and Transocean Ltd., a Swiss corporation ("Transocean"), entered into a Business Combination Agreement (as may be amended from time to time, the "Business Combination Agreement"), which provides for, among…

    Read the filing
  • BlackRock, Inc.
    Passive investor
    11.1%
    Since 31 December 2024
  • Exor N.V.
    Passive investor
    at least 5.1%
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 31 October 2024
  • FMR LLC
    Passive investor
    at least 4.4%
    (filed with 1 related holder)
    Since 31 December 2024
  • at least 3.5%−1.6 pts
    (filed with 3 related holders)
    Since 30 June 2026
  • Sold down below 5%
    Since 10 August 2026
  • The Vanguard Group
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 13 March 2026
  • ORBIS INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LTD
    Passive investor
    Sold down below 5%
    Since 31 December 2024

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

What insiders did

No insider bought or sold on the open market in the last 12 months.

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.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 20 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 6 Aug 2026 and 8 later 8-Ks.

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

  • It isn't cheap on profits: 25.9× operating profit.

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.