SEC Filing Roundup : 4/26

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Mission Advisors 14a-6(g)

In the proxy statement he makes one of his old nonsensical ideas yet again. He wants to fully explore converting the Trust into a Delaware Corporation. He fails to outline even one reason why the corporation would make more sense than the current structure. Not one.

General Cook Expanding Twitter’s Revenues for Q2

Your responsibility is to the corporation and not to outside interests.

When did TPL incorporate?  Did I miss a filing?

White Card 14A with Horizon Kinetics Update to Investors

Texas Pacific Land Trust, a major – sometimes the major – holding in a number of our strategies, is now the subject of a proxy contest between the two trustees who control its activities and an investment group. A shareholder voting period will end with the Special Meeting  that is scheduled to be held on May 22, 2019. The trustees have put forth a candidate to replace the late Maurice Meyer III, who retired in February due to ill health. The investment group has proposed a different person to be the third trustee. Both assert that their candidate would best serve the interests of the Trust.
Central to the proxy contest is that the Trust is as unique in its governance structure as it is in its asset inheritance. The assets are probably unmatched in the scope of their royalty interests, surface acreage and water rights in the oil and gas rich Permian basin of west Texas. The Permian Basin is unmatched in the U.S. for the extent of its reserves, now second in the world only to Saudi Arabia. It is no exaggeration to say that the Permian Basin has enhanced the global geo-political economic position of the U.S.
As to governance, there is probably no other SEC-registered, publicly traded company with trustees or directors who are tenured for life.  One can see why it is especially strongly felt by both parties that the choice of this third trustee is most important.
In almost all such cases, the contesting parties are referred to as an outside investor group, and I have here chosen to exclude that term. This is because this particular group holds over 25% of the shares, is TPL’s largest shareholder group by far, and has held the shares for many, many years. In this sense, they might be said to embody the ideal of a long-term equity stake holder, which is, in its essence, the counterpoint to an outsider. The trustees, in contrast, hold a negligible amount of shares.

8 thoughts on “SEC Filing Roundup : 4/26”

  1. Mission Advisers ask for one reason for a Delaware C Corp. The only one I need is to be able to have visibility into the information beyond the meager and incomplete releases that the trustees make, and also to abolish the ‘lifetime tenure’.

    Glad that I don’t do business with Mission if this is a sample of their advice.

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  2. I still don’t understand how mission advisors states they are the second largest shareholder (can anyone say differently). From anything I have been able to find it’s a 4 person firm with 80 million in assets. It seems to me this guy is looking for press and trying to promote himself. It would be one thing if he had outlined ways to maximize the trust assets but seems to like the status quo.

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  3. I’ve never heard of Mission Advisors and seriously doubt they can stake a claim for being the second largest shareholder. Since there has been such a pro-Oliver stance voiced by other large voting blocks, I think this could be a PR stunt to try to show that the Blue card also has support from certain institutional investors.
    Regarding the C-Corp issue, I would love to see a summary from someone knowledgeable about corporate governance (General Cook?) to outline the pros and cons of what this would mean for TPL going forward. We’re hearing such polarizing opinions from both sides without statement of facts and information that will ultimately help the Trustees make a proper decision.

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  5. Not Mission again?????? yeah, look at their assets under management …and their comment on a C corp change is bizarre…if they are advisers they should know the many benefits for unitholders…not the least of which is accountability, transparency……..the present Trustees already have made a massively bad choice in their first conflicted under qualified candidate,,,,now they give us cook, window dressing and their guy to allow them to continue to be unaccountable..this has left me singularly unimpressed with the two existing trustees… I’ll see them at the meeting……I voted WHITE for OLIVER

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  6. Dana McGinnis of Mission confirms his holdings across various trustee accounts. He votes the proxies.

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    • Then the total shares in the trust accounts should be shown as a total, just like my shares are through my brokerage house, which by the way, is listed as one of the 20 biggest holders. With only $80 million total under management, they can’t hold many shares. Just Saying…

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