I’ve been told the answer to ballot questions is “call Mackenzie”. The company telling you contact the proxy solicitor is par for the course. A company with real care for its investors would want to eliminate any lack of clarity. So typical.

I would not be surprised if they instructed the solicitor to send the whole ballot out again even though #4 is the only vote still alive. If I were them, I would do this to draw attention away from #4 to make it look routine when it is anything but. If I were them, I would be hoping to catch some unengaged voters sleeping.

The first time I voted, this is what I cast. https://tpltblog.com/2022/10/17/my-ballot/

Fill in all the dots. Enjoy voting against most of the incumbents and the executive comp question again. It’s meaningless but fun.

#4 is where your vote matters. Contact your broker to make sure that vote gets counted.

These Merrill and Fidelity emails link me to a voting portal where it clearly says “Not Voted” on the ballot.

This is the exact same ballot as last fall.

What’s going on? I already voted this ballot.

If you contact IR to get to the bottom of this, please let us know what they say.

From reader James:

The guys at Special Situation Investing have been following TPL closely and giving good insights.

https://open.substack.com/pub/specialsituationinvesting/p/tpls-governance-battle?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

There are two more links in the comments of the previous post but I’m writing this from my phone and I’m cut/paste challenged right now.

Below is a letter from a reader. I’m posting to see if anyone else uncovered any issues in voting for the upcoming “meeting”.

Everything was smooth my end. Accounts at two different brokerages presented my prior votes to me. I made no changes.

Hi from Canada.
Two days ago I received voting instructions via snail mail, for May election, for 4 of the 5 accounts in which I own TPL. I voted by phone these 4 accounts. In every case I was informed my shares had already been voted, but I was allowed to change them.
The fifth account where most of my shares are held did not get voting instructions via snail mail. However approximately 1 month ago I received via e-mail voting instructions for TPL. Today I attempted to vote these shares, turns out this was my fifth and largest account. The site was not live, however it said these shares had already been voted, and I was not allowed to change the vote whatever it was. I have contacted the company for assistance.
Seems all my shares were voted by someone other than me. Thought I’d put this out there to see if anybody else has had the same experience. Thanks.
Reader

Has anyone written to the board to request an investigation of the Manti Tarka dealings referenced by the defendants in their recent answer to complaint?

If you have, can you let me know if you’ve received a response? If you haven’t, it could be worth your time to do so.

You’d think a board with a fiduciary duty would want to investigate any whiff of conflicts of interest.

https://tpltblog.com/2023/01/11/defendants-answer-to-verified-complaint/

https://twitter.com/yesandnotyes/status/1626207274120384518?s=46&t=T8Ce2IVvuYbFrWOaWkxdTQ

Is this what happens when you rugpull investors on a vote and sue your largest shareholder? The highs were put in right before the annual meeting date and it’s been a downward spiral since.

Motion from Defendants to get more information.

Shine that light!

https://www.texaspacific.com/investors/news-events/press-releases/detail/138/texas-pacific-land-corporation-to-further-adjourn-2022

Why not disclose the vote count in the meantime?

https://twitter.com/310value/status/1616454686319550464?s=46&t=xRIkcEhdHt4sSZ7L8Q_5JA

This is a bit aged but still worth reading.

Note the Manti Tarka shout out in the answer to paragraph 19. We still don’t have an answer to that after all these years.

The response to 49 is another fun one.

https://ir.stockpr.com/tpltrust/sec-filings-email/content/0001104659-23-000400/tm231470-4_4seq1.html

https://ir.stockpr.com/tpltrust/sec-filings-email/content/0001104659-23-000397/tm231470-3_4seq1.html

https://ir.stockpr.com/tpltrust/sec-filings-email/content/0001104659-23-000387/tm231470-1_4seq1.html

https://ir.stockpr.com/tpltrust/sec-filings-email/content/0001104659-23-000405/tm231470-5_4seq1.html

https://ir.stockpr.com/tpltrust/sec-filings-email/content/0001104659-23-000408/tm231470-6_4seq1.html

TPL investors have become desensitized to the absurdity of its governance. The incentives of personal enrichment, power, and resume building appear to nearly always trump serving the will of shareholders. Looks like the outside world is starting to notice.

https://twitter.com/310value/status/1607752802738049025?s=46&t=zHQPJ1MdTHR5hiM8-QZkWQ

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-27/wild-west-era-permian-powerhouse-sues-its-own-investors-over-strategy

https://tinyurl.com/5b7wcyzf

More evidence of fine governance from the team. How does the rest of the board (Cook, Epps, Duganier, Best, Kurz) just watch this all happen? Aren’t they embarrassed?

Defendants first informed TPL in August 2022 that Defendants would vote against Proposal Four, and reiterated their position repeatedly in the following months. Nonetheless, TPL waited to file proxy solicitation material identifying Defendants’ position until the day before the stockholder meeting.

Against this historical backdrop, it is inconceivable that Horizon would have signed an agreement requiring it to vote in favor of the authorization of millions of new, dilutive shares. Moreover, the plain text of the Stockholders’ Agreement shows Defendants expressly reserved the right to vote against any such corporate maneuvering. Hoping the issue would become moot if enough stockholders voted for Proposal Four, TPL took a “wait and see” approach to see how the vote turned out. When Proposal Four failed at TPL’s November 16, 2022 annual meeting, TPL adjourned the meeting to February 14, 2023, and filed this action six days later. TPL simultaneously moved for expedited proceedings, requesting a trial on February 3, 2023, less than ten weeks from now.

This is not the first time TPL has sued Defendants when it did not like the outcome of an election. TPL and Defendants were adversaries in a 2019 proxy contest, which led to TPL purporting to invalidate a trustee election and filing a lawsuit on the eve of a stockholder meeting to prevent one of SoftVest’s principals from becoming a TPL trustee. Regrettably, Defendants expect that discovery will show that this lawsuit is part and parcel of TPL’s historical use of stockholder assets to suffocate basic stockholder voting rights. In particular, Defendants anticipate that the proposed authorization of new shares may be part of a plan to issue shares to individuals who are supportive of TPL’s incumbent management and legacy directors. Without this share issuance, those individuals are at a risk of being replaced.

When the votes from TPL’s November 16 annual meeting were tallied, Proposal Four failed. TPL adjourned the meeting with respect to Proposal Four until February 14, 2023. On November 22, 2022—nearly twelve weeks after first learning that Defendants would vote against Proposal Four—TPL initiated this action and requested expedition.