AMZA

Fantasy Yields Are For Fools

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Brian Nelson, CFA We spend a lot of time talking about the safety of a firm’s dividend. In fact, we were the pioneers of the Dividend Cushion ratio, a comprehensive cash-flow based measure of the health of a firm’s dividend that takes into consideration all aspects of the company’s financial statements – not just the relationship between dividends per share and earnings per share, the payout ratio. As readers have come to learn, if a company’s Dividend Cushion ratio is below 0, there is significant risk to the sustainability of the payout. Most recently, the Dividend Cushion ratio highlighted the substantial risk related to Seadrill’s (SDRL) payout (in advance of the suspension), and the Cushion, as we call it here … Read more

Worst in Energy Not Over, Stay Away from Leveraged Enterprises, Seeds of Financial Crisis Sown?

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Image Shown: The energy and banking markets continue to be experiencing pain. Since we removed the Energy Select Sector SPDR (XLE) and Financial Select Sector SPDR (XLF) from the Best Ideas Newsletter portfolio and Dividend Growth Newsletter portfolio, the XLE has fallen more than 50% and the XLF has fallen 13%, while the SPY has held up roughly 2%. We continue to believe staying away from energy and financials/banks will be a source of significant alpha. These are challenging times. The oil price swoon has complicated an already-dire situation with COVID-19. We’re seeing cracks in the credit markets, and the European banking system is far from healthy. The US banks may face knock-on impacts from energy loan defaults and hold … Read more

Historic Oil Deal Reached

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Image Source: Chevron Corporation (CVX) – March 2020 Security Analyst Meeting Presentation By Callum Turcan Over the Easter holiday weekend, members from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (‘OPEC’), non-OPEC members that are part of the OPEC+ group (countries that in the recent past have joined forces with OPEC to curtail global oil supplies in a formal manner), and non-OPEC members outside of the OPEC+ group such as Brazil (EWZ), Canada (EWC), and the United States (SPY) came to an agreement to cut their collective oil output by north of 10 million barrels per day. Global oil and other raw energy resource prices (USO, BNO) have been simply demolished year-to-date due to a combination of demand destruction from the ongoing … Read more

The Dividend Cushion Ratio: Unadjusted Is Less Subjective, Adjusted Is More Subjective

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  Image Source: Mike Lawrence Question: I’m a subscriber. I’m looking at your Dividend Report for Enterprise Product Partners (EPD). It says your Valuentum Adjusted Dividend Cushion ratio for EPD is 1.8 (a ratio that includes future expected proceeds from capital raising endeavors in the coming years), but several lines below it says the Unadjusted Dividend Cushion ratio, which is your regular normal ratio (a ratio that does not include future expected proceeds from capital raising endeavors in the coming years), is 0.22. Please explain the difference between the two ratios, and what is considered a good ratio for the Unadjusted Dividend Cushion ratio, what is an excellent score, what is neutral and what is poor? Also, how much relative importance should … Read more

Plains All American to Undergo Simplification Transaction

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Image Source: Plains All American “Quarterly distribution cuts for Plains All American and Plains GP Holdings will be 21% and 11%, respectively, which should come as no surprise to those who have been following our work.” — Kris Rosemann, Valuentum Securities Plains All American (PAA) had previously hinted at a simplification transaction that will combine the economic interests of varying levels of partnership of its master limited partnership (MLP) business model in its 2016 Investor Day presentation, but the company has now entered into a definitive agreement to simplify its corporate governance. The end result of the deal will be one MLP security and one corporate security with pre-tax economic parity between the two. Plains All American will remain an … Read more

Why Natural Gas Prices are So Low and Will Likely Remain So for Some Time

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Our Thoughts on Chevron Buying Noble Energy

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Image Shown: An overview of Chevron Corporation’s all-stock acquisition of Noble Energy Inc that was announced in July 2020. Image Source: Chevron Corporation – July 2020 Noble Energy Acquisition Presentation By Callum Turcan On July 20, Chevron Corporation (CVX) announced it was acquiring Noble Energy Inc (NBL) through a $5.0 billion all-stock transaction, or $13.0 billion when factoring in net debt and the book value of non-controlling interests. Shareholders of Noble Energy will receive approximately 0.12 share of Chevron for each share of Noble Energy. At the time the deal was announced, shareholders of NBL were receiving a ~12% premium based on the ten-day average closing stock prices. Chevron intends to issue ~58 million shares to cover the deal, keeping … Read more

In The News: APU, EPD, MMP, OHI, PSA, O, TGE

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We’re keeping a close eye on a number of high-yielding equities, and several have reported strong earnings during the calendar second quarter. By Kris Rosemann AmeriGas Partners Raises Adjusted EBITDA Guidance AmeriGas Partners (APU), the country’s largest retail propane marketer, turned in its best fiscal third quarter adjusted EBITDA performance since fiscal 2013 in the quarter ended June 30, 2018, results released August 1. Adjusted EBITDA advanced 15% from the year-ago period, and management subsequently raised its full-year fiscal 2018 EBITDA guidance to $625-$645 million from $610-$620 million. Retail volumes sold grew 4% in the quarter thanks to colder weather in April, which was partially offset by warmer months in May and June compared to the same period of fiscal … Read more

Midstreams Going C-Corp, Should SEC Disallow the Measure Distributable Cash Flow?

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Key Takeaways It’s important to differentiate the concept of enterprise free cash flow valuation and the idea of capital-market dependence. The uncertainty of the MLP business model remains, as it is clear operators are shunning the MLP business model preferring C-Corps instead. According to work from Global X Funds, now 40% of the energy infrastructure market cap consists of C-Corps, up considerably from just 15% at the end of 2014. Though many simplifications have come with implied distribution cuts, the primary reason for the rise in C-Corps across the midstream space has been the rationalizing of excess MLP valuations to enterprise free cash flow assessments. We encourage the SEC to consider disallowing the use of distributable cash flow, as it … Read more

2,350-2,750 on the S&P? Could the Coronavirus Catalyze a Financial Crisis?

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Image: We think a rather modest sell-off in the market to the target range of 2,350-2,750 on the S&P 500 is rather reasonable in the wake of one of the biggest economic shocks since the Global Financial Crisis. The chart above shows how far markets have advanced since 2011, and an adjustment lower to the target range of 2,350-2,750 is rather modest in such a context and would only bring markets to late 2018 levels (note red box as the target range). The range reflects ~16x S&P 500 12-month forward earnings estimates, as of February 14, adjusted down 10% due to COVID-19. When companies like Visa talk about a couple percentage points taken off of growth rates, one knows that … Read more