re: Okay, About Ownership

This is about as good information as is publicly available on Gary Chouest's private net worth. It is all conjecture though.

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Here's the problem - Edison Chouest is privately held and is presumed to be owned entirely by the Chouest family. Since it isn't public, the company doesn't release financial statements, so it's difficult to calculate the value of the company, and even tougher to calculate Gary Chouest's net worth. They released in 2004 that revenues totaled $361 million, a figure that has increased enormously since. They have captured about 40% of the shipbuilding market in the Gulf Coast, a figure that makes them the largest firm in the market. Their biggest competitor is Tidewater (TDW), a company that is smaller than Edison Chouest but is publicly traded. They have annual revenues of $1.25 billion and are valued at $2.63 billion. Other companies in the market have similar revenue to market capitalization ratios. Since Edison Chouest is estimated to have revenues between two and three billion dollars, we can expect that the company is worth between four and six billion dollars. Let's just call it $5 billion for the sake of simplicity.

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That doesn't mean that Gary Chouest is worth $5 billion. When Edison Chouest died in 2008 at the age of 91, he probably left the business to his three sons, Gary, Laney, and Edison Jr. All three boys worked in the business when they were growing up, but Gary was chosen to run the company when Edison stepped down. So Gary probably owns at least a third of Edison Chouest ($1.6 billion), and probably has investments that total several hundred million. He's worth, at a bare minimum, $2 billion. He very well could be worth a lot more - the company is likely worth far more than $5 billion, the CEO probably has a higher share of the company than his other two brothers, and Gary probably has enormous sums of money in investments and capital. To put his wealth into perspective, he's worth anywhere between Mavs owner Mark Cuban ($2 billion) and Blazers owner Paul Allen ($13.5 billion).

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Also, this does not take into account any downturn in business due to reduced offshore activities in the GOM since the BP well blowout.