Nine Energy Service is a Houston completions contractor whose first clean quarter after the March recap shows that wiping the old notes did not restore operating leverage. Former holders of the canceled senior notes now own the entire successor equity. Revenue landed inside the guided band, yet adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization missed the low end because two large-diameter coiled tubing units left the fleet and inflation outran price. The investment case turns on whether the tools franchise and a repaired coil fleet can convert the lighter balance sheet into cash, or whether the post-emergence equity is still a thin-margin services book that consumes working capital whenever utilization slips.
Completion Tools is the offset the rest of the platform needs. Stages and tools revenue both jumped by roughly half sequentially, helped by longer laterals that pull more dissolvable plugs and by international work that grew in the first half. Cementing added jobs but gave back price through mix. Wireline stages slipped even as the Haynesville facility opened. Coil days worked rose while the blended day rate fell, which is the signature of white space and mix, not of a healthy recovery. The consequence for shareholders is that the only line compounding is the one that looks most like a product franchise, while the three service lines still trade utilization for margin.
The June quarter still produced a net loss and used cash from operations. Liquidity at mid-year sat near $47 million against a drawn asset-based revolver of $97 million. Management now guides the September quarter to a revenue band that sits flat to slightly below the print just delivered, with coil remaining constrained until the second damaged unit returns near year-end. The open question is whether a recapitalized completions platform that still burns cash in a modestly rising rig-count tape deserves a multiple that already prices a mid-cycle recovery.