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Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Kimball Royalty Partners third quarter 2023 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rick Black, Investor Relations for Kimball Royalty Partners. Thank you. You may begin.
Rick Black
Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Kimball Royalty Partners conference call to review financial and operational results for the third quarter 2023, which ended on September 30th, 2023. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the events and presentations page of the IR section of KimballRP.com. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, November 2nd, 2023, and so please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as to the date of any replay listening or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance, are considered forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to today's earnings press release for our disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution. Reconciliations to the nearest gap measures can be found at the end of today's press release. Kimball assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I would now like to turn the call over to Bob Ravenous, Kimball Realty Partners Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Bob Ravenous
Bob? Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us on the call this morning. With me today are several members of our senior management team, including Davis Ravenous, our President and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Daley, our Chief Operating Officer, and Blaine Reinsberger, our Controller. We are very pleased to announce another record quarter that included substantial growth in all key operating metrics. Our total production, including a full quarter from our recent $455 million acquisition from a private seller, exceeded 23,000 BOE per day for the first time in our history. We are excited to have achieved this significant milestone as we continue to execute Our strategic business model aimed at not only consolidating the U.S. oil and natural gas royalty sector, but also, and more importantly, generating long-term value for our unit holders. The third quarter marked new all-time highs set in production, rig count, ducts, and permits. During the quarter, our production mix continued to materially shift towards liquids, with oil and NGLs now representing 49% of our production compared to 46% last quarter. Activity in our acreage remains strong, and we now have a 17% market share of the overall U.S. land rig count, the highest in our history. Even after giving effect to our most recent $455 million acquisition, we still have the best-in-class PDP decline rate of only 14%. At the end of the quarter, we had 9.3 net ducks and permits, reflecting the widest spread we've ever had of line-of-sight wells relative to the number of wells needed to maintain flat production of only 5.8 net wells per year. This gives us confidence in the resilience in our production as we wrap up 2023 and look at 2024. In short, we are extremely pleased with this quarter, as well as our third quarter distribution of 51 cents that we declared today, an increase of 31 percent from last quarter. In September, we closed our largest acquisition in the company's history. As we stated then and still believe today, this acquisition is expected to significantly enhance Kimball's positions in the best-performing, highest-growth oil and gas basins in the lower 48. The targeted portfolio of mineral and royalty interests complements our disciplined approach to M&A, combining excellent reservoir quality, near-term cash flow, and long-term drilling upside. While this acquisition was immediately accretive to distributable cash flow per unit, We believe it will generate accelerated accretion in the future years. We look forward to continuing our role as a major consolidator in the oil and natural gas royalty sector. I'll now turn the call over to Davis to review our financials in more detail before we open the call to questions.
Bob
Thanks, Bob, and good morning, everyone. Kimball performed extremely well in the third quarter and generated record daily production that marked a significant new milestone for Kimball. including a full quarter of the acquired production that Bob just discussed, the revenues of which will be received by Kimball for the full quarter. Run rate production was 23,531 BOE per day on a six to one basis. As a result of the significant incremental production and our expectations for the fourth quarter, today we are boosting our production guidance range for Q4. In addition, we expect record low cash G&A per VOE in Q4, reflecting the positive operating leverage our business model generates. I'll start by reviewing our financial results from the third quarter, beginning with oil, natural gas, and NGL revenues of 69.2 million, an increase of 21.5% compared to the second quarter. Third quarter 2023 run rate average daily production was 19,777 BOE per day, including 18 days of production from our recent acquisition. This represents a 13% increase compared to the second quarter run rate average daily production of 17,573 BOE per day. Our third quarter production mix was comprised of approximately 51% for natural gas, approximately 49 from liquids or 34 from oil and 15 from ngls as of september 30th 2023 bimble's major properties had 909 gross or 5.4 net ducks and 805 gross or 3.94 net permitted locations on its acreage this data does not include our minor properties which we estimate could add an additional 20% to the duck and permit inventory. In addition, we exited the quarter with 99 rigs actively drilling on our acreage, and our market share of all land rigs drilling in the continental United States represents approximately 17%, a new record. On the expense side, general and administrative expenses for Kimball were $10.4 million, $7 million of which was cash G&A expense. Excluding the impact of approximately $1.5 million in transaction-related expenses associated with the acquired production and including a full quarter impact of the acquired production, cash G&A per BOE was $2.55, a new record low for the company. Third quarter net income was approximately $18.5 million, and net income attributable to common units was approximately $13.6 million. as compared to 17.8 million and 13.5 million respectively from last quarter. Total third quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA was 55.8 million up from 45 million last quarter, including the acquired production from the effective date of June 1st, 2023 through September 30th, 2023 Q3 2023 consolidated adjusted EBITDA was 71.6 million. You will find a reconciliation of both consolidated adjusted EBITDA and cash available for distribution at the end of our news release. Today we announced a cash distribution of 51 cents per common unit for the third quarter. This represents a cash distribution payment to common unit holders that equates to 75% of cash available for distribution and the remaining 25% will be used to pay down a portion of the outstanding borrowings under Kimball's secured revolving credit facility. We expect that approximately 55% of our third quarter 2023 distribution should not constitute dividends for U.S. federal income tax purposes. but instead are estimated to constitute non-taxable reductions to the basis of each distribution recipient's ownership interest in Kimball common units. Please refer to today's earnings release for additional commentary related to taxes. Moving now to our balance sheet and liquidity. As a reminder, on June 13th, we amended our existing credit agreement to, among other things, increase the borrowing base and elected commitment amount from 350 million to 400 million on the secured revolver and extend the maturity to june 2027. as of september 30 2023 we had approximately 310.4 million in debt outstanding under our secure revolving credit facility We continue to maintain a conservative balance sheet with net debt to trailing 12 months consolidated adjusted EBITDA of 0.9 times. Kimball had approximately 89.6 million in undrawn capacity under its secured revolving credit facility as of September 30th, 2023. We are very comfortable with our strong financial position, the support of our expanding bank syndicate, and our financial flexibility. We remain very bullish about our industry and our company as we see a long horizon for continued growth and opportunities to enhance shareholder value. With that, operator, we are now ready for questions.
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Derek Whitfield with Steeple. Please proceed with your question.
Derek Whitfield
Thanks, and good morning, all. Hey, good morning. With my first question, I wanted to focus on your growth trajectory. Looking beyond Q4, with line-of-sight inventory far exceeding your maintenance requirements, It feels like there's quite a bit of upside to consensus forecasts, given that we're largely holding production flat in Q4. Is that a reasonable statement?
Bob
It's a great question. It's a great point. As you know, it's always challenging, to say the least, to predict growth and production volumes as a royalty company, just given the fact that we don't have, you know, obviously control over duct completion dates, permit conversions, etc., That being said, your point is well-founded. So we now have more kind of line-of-sight wells relative to maintenance wells to keep production flat than I believe we've ever had in company history as a ratio. So that would suggest robust growth going forward, or at least certainly more than we've had in the past on an organic basis. What you'll probably see from us as we dig into the numbers and provide continued guidance for 2024 is is a conservative view on production. That being said, you know, your point is well stated and justified, and I don't disagree with the premise. Matt, anybody else want to jump in there on any thoughts?
Matt
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would just say that, you know, looking at Q3, we had, you know, very good conversions to PDP in the Permian, Hainesville, and Eagleford. Excluding the acquisition we made in Q3, Our legacy production actually grew 2% quarter per quarter between Q2 and Q3. So that's 8% annualized growth organically for our legacy production. So that's a great growth quarter there. But looking forward, as David said, you're correct. I mean, we have a record number of line-of-sight wells right now at 9.34. We only need 5.8 net wells to stay flat. That's the highest spread in the company history. So we feel very good about not only the resilience of Q4 production, but also the potential for organic growth as we wrap up 23 and go into 24?
Bob
Derek, it's a balance. We don't want to be unduly conservative, but we also don't want to be overly aggressive. So we do our best when issuing guidance, just given the lack of operational control. I hope that's fair in your view. Thank you.
Derek Whitfield
It is, and with my follow-up, clearly understanding that the Inc. is drawing on the largest transaction you guys have done in the history of the company, I wanted to ask if you could characterize the competitive landscape for M&A at present and your interest in participating in it, and has the recent, I guess, surge or affirming in commodity prices changed the bid-ask dynamics out in the markets?
Bob
Great question. So I would say just first and foremost, in my opinion, this was a historic year for M&A and the royalty sector. Not just ourselves, but also our peers, I think, have done a fabulous job of consolidating and getting private minerals into the public sector. So it's been a big year overall. I think that the competitive dynamic for larger packages, like the ones that we would be targeting, is probably the most favorable to buyers that I've seen in quite some time. I would actually argue in many ways that we see this, that some of the smaller deals that come across our desk are priced editably than larger deals. And so I think that a lot of aggregators are going to have some difficulty putting together packages where they pay, let's call it 10 times cashflow and then try to sell it to someone else like for, you know, a meaningful multiple greater than that, like 12 times. But in reality, the large M&A deals that you're seeing, whether it's from ourselves or our peers, are in the six to eight times cash flow range. So we think there is benefit right now to being a larger buyer of assets. We will always look at everything. I think what you'll see is that we'll continue to be very cheap on the acquisitions that we make. We've had years where we've done no deals. We've had years where we've done one deal. This year, we did three meaningful ones, but frankly, they were all unexpected in nature. We didn't It's hard to predict the M&A wave, and we just happen to be in a good place at the right time. And some assets that we really liked, and we're able to get them. So I'd say that we're going to participate. We'll be pursuing deals on a leverage-neutral basis. We don't anticipate levering up, obviously, any more than we already are. And we like our chances. And I think that we've done very well historically in using our currency, either through primary offerings or direct issuances to sellers. as a currency to acquire assets. I think we're differentiated in that regard. And so I think you'll continue to see us in the M&A landscape. So we're going to be very rifle shot in our approach. Bob or Matt, anything else you guys want to add?
Bob Ravenous
Yeah, the only thing I'd like to add is we really love the last three acquisitions that we've done, and we're delighted to have been able to get them at a creative pricing. So starting with Hatch last year, MB, and then this most recent largest third quarter acquisition, The quality, the production on all three are excellent, and just a lot of drilling activity. So we're very excited about the way these three acquisitions are performing.
Derek Whitfield
Very insightful. Thanks for your time.
Bob
Thanks, Derek.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Abbott with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Rick Black
Hey, good morning, and thank you for taking our questions. Good morning.
Operator
Both work.
Rick Black
Yeah, so both our questions are really on tax. So, you know, per your presentation, you've indicated that 55% of the distribution paid in November will be non-tax for federal purposes. I guess the real question is how does that trajectory sort of look over sort of a multi-year basis based off your forecast? What do you think about that?
Bob
In terms of future, how does that 55% number change going forward?
Rick Black
Correct.
Bob
Yeah. Blaine, are you on the call right now? I might defer it to you to answer that question.
spk02
Yeah, I am. And we used to, you know, we used to in previous years provide guidance going out further than just the quarter. But then when commodity prices increased, we kind of made the change to do it quarter by quarter. So I would say really, you know, that number, that 55% number is really just going to ride with commodity prices. So if you see are running oil and natural gas prices that the return of capital number is going to go down. But there's really no other factors other than that that's going to change that. So I would just, the answer would be that it's going to change with commodity prices and move with that.
Rick Black
I understand. I understand that you don't necessarily provide multi-year tax guidance anymore. And I understand the volatility of commodity prices. But you are taxed like a C-Corp. You've done your acquisition, so that probably helps your taxes probably next year and maybe a little bit after that. But at what point, just sort of assuming if you did not do another acquisition, would you guys think that you would be a full taxpayer? Are we looking four to five years out? If we just sort of look at the strip today.
Bob
Yeah, John, it's a fair question. Given the dramatic growth we've had this year, candidly, that analysis that you're asking for, it's challenging. We have to work with accounting firms and it takes time to come up with that. In fact, I think we're one of the only firms that's ever provided multi-year tax guidance, at least in our sector. Let us reflect on that. Given the M&A growth that we've had this year, obviously the dynamics of the company have changed pretty meaningfully. But that might be something that's worth our time to revisit. And point taken that additional disclosure is always great. So that's on us. Let us circle up internally and figure out next steps on providing additional guidance, if that's fair.
Rick Black
That's fair. Thank you very much for taking our questions.
Bob
Yep. Our pleasure.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Trafford Lamar with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Lamar
Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions. Hey, good morning. Yeah, good morning. And I guess the first one I have, you know, leverage is now below 1x and continues to move directionally lower. Should we anticipate a 75% payout ratio moving higher over time or how should we think about that? How are you guys thinking about that?
Bob
Yeah, excellent question. Always the best question for us is how do you manage the cash flows and how do we think about rewarding shareholders in the most efficient way? I would say that at the board level, we want to keep the ratio, the payout ratio consistent at 75%. We like paying down debt, particularly when we're paying 8% interest on it with 25% of our cash flow. So I think you'll see us continue to do that for quite some time. There will be a point at which we want to start to redeem the prep that we have. So bringing up additional capacity on the revolver just gives us more flexibility to do that. So I think that's where we are at this point, but it's something that we constantly evaluate. And your point is very well taken, which is that, you know, the balance sheet is in great shape. There may be a point in the future where we decide to increase that payout ratio because it's just unduly conservative. We just don't feel, at least at this point, that we're at that point yet. Matt or Bob, anything you guys want to add?
Matt
No, I'd say that, you know, our borrowing base continues to increase. You know, we're going to have a fall redetermination meeting later this month. And we, you know, right now we're at $400 million on our credit facility. We expect that to go up in Q4, you know, which is adding additional liquidity. But as David says, you know, right now the plan is to over the next, you know, quarters to continue to pay down the credit facility to be in a good position, call it this time next year to redeem a big chunk of that Apollo preferred. So.
Lamar
awesome thanks for that and kind of on a similar note uh regarding hedges but some of y'all kind of proportionally added uh oil and gas hedges in 24 and 25 and got you know some higher swap price in uh second half of 24. uh similarly with leverage you know kind of below that 1x number kind of how do y'all think about hedging moving forward we're we we systematically do it we you know it's always a question of of how how do you think about hedging as a royalty company for us
Bob
We don't have to protect a CapEx budget like a driller does, obviously. But for us, we do have the built-in financial leverage vis-a-vis debt. And so what we do is we take our debt, we divide it by enterprise value, and we hedge that ratio on a rolling two-year forward basis. So if I'm not mistaken, I believe that's at 17% right now, Matt, I think, for the next two years on average.
Matt
That's correct, yep.
Bob
Yeah, so I think we'll just continue to do that. Just keep a consistent strategy. We're not trying to predict movements in oil and gas prices. People historically get in a lot of trouble doing that.
Lamar
Perfect. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to join the question queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from the line of Tim Resvin with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Tim Resvin
Good morning, everybody, and congratulations on the Texas Rangers last night.
Bob Ravenous
Yeah, thanks. That was a great game.
Tim Resvin
It was good tears. Derek actually took both my questions, so I was hoping to push a little more because I think they're important topics. On the M&A market, you know, you've seen some pretty attractive debt financing set up by peers of yours, and I'd imagine that sellers notice that as well. So... You know, we saw it looked like a log jam broke on M&A this year. And now that there's more financing available maybe than people thought in the year, you know, at the start of the year. You know, I guess trying to understand sort of what's the latest, you know, kind of how do you think about kind of the near-term outlook overall for the sector?
Bob
Man, it's a really great question. That's one of the most fun things about our business is looking at the M&A environment. And it's been... really fun to watch it evolve since we started doing this, you know, well, 25 years ago, but in the public context and gearing up for public the last 10 years, we continue to be surprised by just the sheer volume of, of private sellers that are out there. There are groups out there that have a hundred million dollar packages, uh, that we just get introduced to on a weekly, if not monthly basis, they didn't know previously. I mean, there's, there's just an incredible consolidation effort going out there going on out there, uh, And it's really just a reflection of just how big the industry is. I mean, it's, you know, over half a trillion dollars in size and it's just massively fragmented. So we expect that trend, if you looked historically, and if we had like, you know, a bar chart of it, it just continues to always go up. And frankly, it always surprises us. We always end up being a little bit conservative on how much M&A volume there is out there. Our view, so I would say that we continue to expect robust M&A activity. our view is always to be just highly selective on what we buy. We try to sit around, look at the landscape and say, what's the best possible asset out there that we can get at a price that maximizes returns to our shareholders. And we try to focus in on those opportunities. And there's not a lot of them every year. You know, if you brought up the Rangers, we're just waiting for the right pitch and we want to swing at the right opportunity. So yeah, I agree with you on the debt financing angle. I don't think that you're looking at an environment where there's a very small number of public buyers and there are hundreds, if not thousands of private buyers. And so I think that sets up a very favorable dynamic for us as a buyer, as a public buyer. I think that in some cases, the private folks have gotten a little bit disappointed by the ability to pay of the publics. And I think you've kind of forgotten in some cases that You know, the public valuations where we trade should trickle down to what the private valuations are. And so for us, I think, and you've seen this consistently, there is a strange dynamic going on where you're seeing some private folks raise money and outbid public competitors. And that's just kind of the opposite of what you would expect. So maybe at some point that changes. But focusing on some of these larger packages where there is a limited exit opportunity seems to be working for ourself and our peers, not just us. It seems to be working for everybody. So I think we'll just continue to do more of the same in this environment. Bob or Matt, anything you guys want to add?
Rick Black
No, that's a great answer.
Tim Resvin
That's great. I appreciate that context. And then back to the, you know, sort of the maintenance activity levels. I think, you know, 5.4 net ducks, 3.9 net permitted locations. You have now a much bigger exposure to sort of the mid-con. I'm just curious kind of any insight on, you know, visibility on converting those permits to PDPs. And you mentioned strong execution in the third quarter. Just how that's been trending and how you think about that now that you have a lot more exposure to the mid-con than you had earlier in the year.
Bob
yeah that's that's a great question um i'm not sure we have enough data yet to really to really give you a full answer on the most recently acquired midcon asset in terms of how those permits have converted to um to to real development i would say on average permits convert across the portfolio bob what would you say 12 to 18 months
Bob Ravenous
Yeah, usually within that, but yes. Yep.
Bob
Yeah, and we love our mid-con position. In fact, we think that was one of the best buys we've ever made, frankly, in terms of bang for your buck and in terms of what we've been able to buy in terms of hydrocarbon in place relative to purchase price. Good question. Let us give you a more full answer over the next quarter or two in terms of how we're seeing activity there. But I think just a little bit too early to probably give you a read on what's going on there in terms of permit conversions. Okay.
spk00
That's fair. Thanks. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to management for any final comments.
Bob Ravenous
Yeah. We thank you all for joining us this morning and look forward to speaking with you again when we report fourth quarter results. This completes today's call.
Operator
Thank you. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for your participation and interest.
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