32 thoughts on “What’s Your Price?”

  1. Road show was in Boston visiting Fidelity today? Whispers are that a Dutch auction suggestion from the audience didn’t get a reaction.

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    • Who was at the road show? The committee? The IR person? Do we have any details?

      I’d like to know that the people on the roadshow representing us have some credibility, which means no TPL managers from the pre-committee era operating without external holders,

      How could anyone take Norris and Packer and Cook seriously?

      And while we are at it, I am not sure how anyone can take HK and Softvest seriously after the legal beat down they took from Sidley.

      Let’s hope it was the Credit Suisse guy and the new IR person, along with some actual division managers or something.

      The lack of disclosure is ridiculous. Sure, they made a new website and made a deck, but the nerve of these schmucks to go pitch the biz to non-holders when they won’t even talk to holders is obscene.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. There is literally NO ONE on the side of small holders of the stock. HK wouldn’t have folded like a paper bag if they were on our side.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. HK did not fold. We would not be at this point if it wasn’t for Eric Olive, Murray Stahl, etc.
    There actions benefit all share holders by moving this out of a Trust.

    Liked by 3 people

    • Hi Dave,

      But let’s be clear. The shareholders voted for Oliver. It was a landslide. We spoke.

      But then the lawsuit ended, Oliver is not a trustee, and the committee has Cook and McGinnis and Hodges on it who weren’t on the ballot. Sure, Hodges is a good one but he wasn’t on our ballot. Whatever motives are, you simply cannot deny that this happened.

      Please tell me how our votes were counted and respected.

      The evidence conflicts with your view.

      Why pursue a trustee seat and only end up on a committee with leas of an interest (2/7 seats vs 1/3 trustee seats)?

      And that jackass Cook has a seat!!

      Maybe the outcome will be better, but to perceive it as certain isn’t a compelling argument. Look at the buybacks, for example.

      Liked by 2 people

      • I totally disagree with your view. They saw a better way forward, and what’s good for HK is good for us little guys..My broker always tells me to ‘follow the money’ and that’s HK in this case.

        Only having a trustee seat would have left Oliver outvoted 2-1 for any C Corp conversion or other governance changes. They (HK & Oliver) have control of the outcome of the committee the way it was set up.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Wait, perhaps I have misunderstood. I am more than happy to be wrong.

          How do they have control of the committee?

          The committee is as follows:

          Norris/Barry/Cook – TPL side
          McGinnis – Opposed Oliver
          Hodges – not a participant in the proxy, though generally can be assumed to side with HK/Oliver
          Stahl
          Oliver

          How is that not at least 4:3 with TPL on top? It sure looks like 5:2.

          Liked by 1 person

        • Also, look at the Proxy Video and please see Hodges response during the video…. He’s got skin in the game, just like HK and Oliver. His response sure tells me that he’s not just automatically siding with the trustees….

          Liked by 1 person

        • 5 of the 7 have to vote in favor of actions, with Hodges as the wildcard.

          I appreciate your point but Hodges wasn’t involved.

          What assures you that Hodges will always vote with Softvest/Agt/HK?

          Liked by 1 person

        • Another question is about Cook. It seems understood that The General is in favor of the Norris/Barry/McGinnis side; who is to say that The General isn’t truly voting in the best interest of the shareholders? Surely he found it odd that he lost by a landslide and he heard the shareholders voice? I find it likely he is leaning towards the trustees side, but I think this is an assumption. I’m curious what the “other votes” consisted of. TPLTblogger, thank you for all of your work.

          Liked by 1 person

  4. I totally agree with Dave. HK is using smarts that the two boneheads, Norris & Barry, don’t have to move this whole issue forward.

    Liked by 1 person

  6. Why would I tender into something – which has a fairly unique path of massive value creation? This thing is impossible to model. You have a naturally declining share-count with exploding net income. Right now, we – as in current shareholders – are benefiting from the ACTIONS taking 60, 70 years ago…as the former Trustees retired massive amounts of stock. In the 1930’s TPL had something like 500,000,000 shares o/s on a split adjusted basis….today its just 7,700,000 (!!!)

    the problem with the roadshow is that no one knows the history here. Not even the morons in-charge. I cant wait until I can vote these guys out of office, and put in Eric Oliver!!!

    Liked by 2 people

  7. The only reason that I would at an exorbitant price is that I’m 77 years old and would get the cash now while I’m still alive instead of dribs and drabs every year for how many more years that I’m around. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  9. “The lack of disclosure is ridiculous. Sure, they made a new website and made a deck, but the nerve of these schmucks to go pitch the biz to non-holders when they won’t even talk to holders is obscene.”

    Could not agree more! They show their current holders (big or small) no respect at all. I love TPL Blogger but the fact he knows about this secret road show and we don’t is bothersome. The fact I find out about a visit to Fidelity today through this blog is bothersome (I’m a fidelity client).

    As I stated earlier, I don’t question the integrity of the people sharing this information with us here, I deeply appreciate it. I question the judgement of the TPL IR team that behave in such a clandestine and careless way. If this were a private company I could write some of this off, but our beloved IR Director Chris Steddum is a fiduciary at a Trust, so why does he get to share more info about the Trust with potential investors instead of the existing investors he is entrusted to keep informed and engage with?

    Again, I love the institutional investor strategy. I love the online community coming together to share information. I hate that I’m learning about one through these channels and that my IR is AWOL since the day he joined.

    Liked by 2 people

      • To clarify, I heard about the road trip from friends who work in institutional equity management. They were notified via their sales coverage. All very routine. Normal course of business for publicly listed companies.

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        • Just to reiterate my position for full clarity… TPLBlogger I’m not suggesting under any circumstances that you had learned about this road show in any unsavory or unethical manner. I truly appreciate the fact you are tuned in, committed, and willing to share information in a responsible and prudent way within this community you have created. Respect. This blog and it’s members are fantastic, I’ve been saying that since day one and have not wavered.

          That being said, the way TPL have gone about this Road Show is not normal course of action for a publicly listed company. ( I know you are saying the source of your info is normal, not the action of TPL, and I agree with you). Normal publicly traded companies would not leave their existing share holders in the dark on new strategies and on such significant events as investor road shows without a single mention.

          Chris Steddum is a failure.

          Liked by 1 person

      • Ezra I read your stuff here and other locations and appreciate your insights and opinions on TPL. That said you definitely made mention of the fact that Cook and the Trust have been less then transparent in their sharing of information with Sub-share holders in the past, i.e. investor relations.

        Liked by 1 person

        • By the way… if what you’re saying is you’ve had a change of heart today due to the phone-call, then that’s great and perhaps you can share some of what has changed your mind.

          Liked by 1 person

        • bdawg,

          Oh yeah. I’ve shredded them. I especially don’t like Cook and his arrogance born from a lack of care or knowledge about TPL and the oil and land industries. The guy didn’t answer any of our questions and went on video like we owed him a board vote because he served. It was shameful. That d%$head even wanted us to take the time to ask stuff and then just ignored it. And he gets paid from our money. Scammer.

          In the past, IR has been bad. Packer called me back once and that’s been it over the years. This is frustrating as a guy who likes to ask a lot of questions.

          However, I was pleasantly surprised when I sent an email in yesterday and received a thoughtful, gracious, and detailed response today.

          I’m saying that they have made a change and I was wrong to say in this thread that the new regime in IR was the same as the old.

          I’ll admit that I hadn’t tried to reach out since they hired someone new and was cursing them based on what others have said.

          I was pleased to get a reply that respected my question.

          So yeah I’m laying off given the experience I had.

          Liked by 1 person

        • I can appreciate that Ezra and I can also appreciate TPLbloggers comment that we should give it some time, so my earlier comments about failure are probably just frustration with the fact these gives continue to live in the shadows. It may sound like bitching and moaning, it’s not meant to come across that way to you my fellow bloggers and investors, I’ve got nothing but respect for you guys.

          Liked by 2 people

  10. The road show went very well and laid out the massive potential of the unique checker board pattern of TPL land and how that works in a synergistic way with the 3 primary business segments . Surface, royalties and water royalties. A cash flow leader head and shoulders above its competitors. In the end the asset value will dwarf any nonsense that is going on. I’d think about added to your stake if I were you.

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