Fun read at Findlaw.com

In the late 1800’s, TPLT was given several million surface acres by the Texas Legislature in exchange for constructing the Trans-Texas Railroad. In 1954, TPLT obtained a declaratory judgment in a Texas district court authorizing it to create a subsidiary company, TXL Oil Corporation, for the purpose of conveying to that company all of TPLT’s mineral interests. On December 10, 1954, TPLT conveyed to TXL all of its mineral interests underlying its 2 million surface acres. Under this conveyance, TXL reserved all of its surface acres as well as a non-participating royalty interest in those lands under an oil and gas lease to third parties. In 1962, TXL sold all of the mineral interests to Texaco, Inc., and Texaco, Inc. conveyed these mineral interests to Texaco Exploration and Production, Inc. (TEPI) in 1991. Texaco, Inc. and/or TEPI owned and operated the mineral interests until 2002 when they were acquired by Chevron U.S.A. in the merger between Chevron Corporation and Texaco, Inc.

Anyone know what happened with the proceeds?

A Tontine!

A Tontine is an investment plan for raising capital, devised in the 17th century and relatively widespread in the 18th and 19th centuries. It combines features of a group annuity and a lottery. Each subscriber pays an agreed sum into the fund, and thereafter receives an annuity. As members die, their shares devolve to the other participants, and so the value of each annuity increases.

Posts like the one above reflect the old mental model of TPL.  (Though I never tire about thinking about tontines.  Tontines are the investment/insurance product that that the world doesn’t know it needs.)

Anyhow, the old mental model goes like this: TPL sells land and collects miscellaneous income.  Proceeds are used to repurchase and cancel shares.  The guy to hold the last share out wins whatever is left.

I’d argue that the new mental model is more growth oriented:  TPL is growing a water business which to me seems ripe for a spin-off (tax free!) or a sale at some point.  Royalty interests are growing in value at a pace far greater than inflation (thanks technology!).  Land not used for water has many uses in other oil extraction and logistics activities.  The stock is painfully illiquid and hard to repurchase (thus lower repurchases).  The company pays a dividend and has signaled an intention to make it regular.  What we have here is an asset rich growth stock! 

All signs point to liquidation and repurchase being pretty low on the priority list.  Growing (top line, bottom line, capex, head count, etc) appears to be the main focus.

How are you reconciling the two? I admit to having some trouble as I worry/think about the growth trajectory/asset value tops of the land and its associated income product (though these two things are a circular value).  Does TPL not do its best for the trust if it doesn’t sell all or materially all of its assets at the top?  Is there a new agency problem that needs to be explored with the growth? Employees don’t want to fire themselves; the internal incentive to liquidate has to be lower.  In my estimation, we’ve got a beautiful push/pull going on.  It’s going to be fun watching from here on out.

 

 

The quote below isn’t entirely correct as I’ve come to learn that Texas Pacific Water Resources (TPWR) is becoming more of a regular presence on the conference/ marketing scene and rightly so.

If you are looking to attend a Texas Pacific Land Trust session at an oil and gas conference you will be disappointed.

They won’t be there.

You aren’t going to be able to read an analyst report on this company either.  Nobody follows them since there are no investment banking fees to be earned here.

Even press releases from these guys are few and far between.  They announce quarterly earnings and that’s it.

The corporate website is functional and nothing more.

 

 

Texas and Pacific Railway and Texas Pacific Land Trust – a History of Railroads in Texas

Will continue to clean out my evernote notebook dedicate to TPL and deposit here.  This is a great read.

“Texas and Pacific Railway was created by federal charter in 1871. Its charter was to build a southern transcontinental railroad between Marshall, Texas and San Diego, California. Railroad companies were given land grants in exchange for building rail line, and the U.S. Congress granted T&P twenty sections of land per mile in California and forty sections per mile through the territory that is now Arizona and New Mexico. The State of Texas (where there were no federal lands) agreed to grant T&P twenty sections per mile for the portion of the line crossing Texas. The panic of 1873 caused financial difficulties, and by 1876 only 444 miles had been built. In 1879, Jay Gould bought the company and began laying track west. Gould merged T&P with Southern Pacific Railway, and by 1881 it had built a total of 972 miles of track, entitling it to 12.4 million acres of land. But because it had not built all of the line within the time required by its charter, T&P was awarded only 5,173,120 acres, later reduced to 4,917,074 acres – 3.5 million of that in Texas.

In 1888, the T&P went through bankruptcy and receivership, and the bondholders who financed the railroad were awarded the land in Texas that had been granted to T&P. The bondholders created a trust, Texas Pacific Land Trust, to liquidate those lands for the benefit of the bondholders, receiving 3.5 million acres of land. The certificates of trust issued to the bondholders were later listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The mineral estate under the land was spun off into a separate entity and later sold to Texaco, now Chevron. TPLT owns a royalty interest in almost 500,000 acres of its land.”