MLPs have become more attractively priced compared with other income-oriented sectors. One way to see this is to compare the trailing four quarter yield. REITs and utilities have remained within a fairly narrow range, while MLPs rose sharply during the 2014-15 oil collapse. After a partial recovery, weakness over the past year or so has caused MLP yields to drift higher again.

 

For many years prior to the 2014 sector peak, MLP yields were around 2% above utilities. Currently, they’re around 5% wider. This ought to attract crossover buying from income-seeking investors, switching their utility exposure for MLPs, but so far there’s limited evidence of this happening. Although the yield advantage over REITs isn’t quite as dramatic, the same relative value switch exists there too.

 

The broad energy sector has remained out of favor. MLPs used to track utilities and REITs fairly closely until 2014 when they followed energy lower. However, even compared with energy, midstream infrastructure remains historically cheap. Research from Credit Suisse shows that on an Enterprise Value/EBITDA basis, pipelines are the cheapest vs the S&P energy sector they’ve been since 2010.

The Shale Revolution has challenged the MLP model in ways that few anticipated. Increasing U.S. output of crude oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas is creating substantial benefits for the U.S. Improved terms of trade, greater geopolitical flexibility and reduced CO2 emissions underpin America’s greater willingness to buck the global consensus. However, investors are still waiting for the financial benefits. This is partly because the capital investments required have demanded more cash. E&P companies had to fund investments in new production, which drew criticism that they were over-spending on growth. Similarly, MLPs pursued many opportunities to add infrastructure for transportation, processing and storage in support of new production. All this left less cash to be returned to investors through buybacks and dividends. It remains the biggest impediment to improved returns.

 

Unlike MLPs, both utilities and REITs have both been increasing dividends. Even the energy sector has raised payouts, although this was achieved in part through less spent on stock buybacks, which has led their investor base to insist on improved financial discipline. MLPs have both increased cash flows and lowered distributions.  Oil & gas executives seem unable to turn down a growth project.

By contrast with the income sectors with which MLPs used to compete, they have been lowering dividends. This makes yield comparisons less reliable, and likely explains why there’s been little evidence of shifts away from lower-yielding, traditional income sectors.

It’s why the biggest pipeline companies have dropped the MLP structure in favor of becoming corporations, so as to access the broadest possible set of investors. However, that hasn’t always worked out either, as the history of prior distribution cuts continues to weigh on sentiment. Williams Companies (WMB) is an example of a corporation that combined with its MLP, Williams Partners (WPZ). WMB CEO Alan Armstrong claims to be puzzled by persistent stock weakness. Meanwhile, legacy WPZ investors well recall the multiple distribution cuts they endured along the way (see Pipeline Dividends Are Heading Up).

In our experience, one of the issues that makes current investors nervous and gives new ones pause is that they don’t understand the continued weakness when volumes are up and management teams bullish. In December most sectors were down sharply, and global growth concerns depressed the energy sector along with most others. But for most of 2018 and certainly the second half, the disconnect between strong operating performance and poor security returns has perplexed many.

We’ve sought to explain this, and regular readers will know we’ve concluded that reduced distributions are the most important factor. The investor base was originally drawn for stable income, which in recent years MLPs have failed to provide. The Shale Revolution, perversely, has so far been a lousy investment theme even while it’s been terrific for America.  The charts in this blog post present a narrative now familiar to many.

Next year we expect rising dividends for the companies in the American Energy Independence Index to draw increasingly favorable attention to the sector. Although the MLP model no longer suits most of the biggest operators in the industry, midstream energy infrastructure offers compelling value. The best way to participate is by investing in the biggest companies, which are mostly corporations but do include a few MLPs. When the sector begins its recovery, it’ll start from far below fair value.

We are invested in WMB.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).

For investors who seek despondent sellers, look no further than energy infrastructure in late 2018. The Alerian MLP Index made its all-time high way back in August 2014. It currently sits 43% lower (including dividends). Barring a strong recovery in the last days of December, returns for three of the past four years are negative. Not coincidentally, MLP distributions are down for their fourth straight year. The Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) has cut payouts by 34%, with its most recent one last month. Investors don’t want dividend cuts, they want dividend hikes – and in 2019 they will see them.

The shift of MLP Distributable Cash Flow (DCF) from distributions to funding growth projects has been well documented (see Will MLP Distribution Cuts Pay Off?). Growth capex (i.e. where that money went) dipped in 2016 but has been robust since then. Valuations continue to be more reflective of Free Cash Flow (FCF), which is after capex, whereas we think DCF (before capex) is more relevant (see Valuing Pipelines Like Real Estate). But investors are skeptical that cash formerly paid out is being well spent, and resentful of the dozens of cuts. Rising payouts should help.

Pipeline company earnings calls are full of positive reports with optimistic guidance. Business has rarely been this good. In August, Energy Transfer (ET) CEO Kelcy Warren memorably said, “A monkey could make money in this business right now.” (see Running Pipelines is Easy). Business conditions have only improved since then. In November, ET reported another strong quarter, beating Street estimates of EBITDA by 11%. Yet ET’s stock slumped, and is down 33% from its late July “business is easy” level, even though that description seems accurate.

No other metric explains sector performance as well as the path of dividends (or distributions for MLPs).

It’s rare for an industry to cut dividends when profits are growing, but that’s exactly what this sector has done. Falling dividends are so often associated with poor operating performance that investors reasonably equate the two – especially yield investors. Pipeline management teams consistently report on terrific business conditions and lament their stock’s low valuation. Part of the reason is that management teams too often invest in new projects rather than buying back stock. Buybacks with DCF yields of 14% and higher must surely be more compelling (and less risky) than all but the most attractive new investments. It’s no wonder investors question their judgement.  Williams Companies (WMB) CEO Alan Armstrong recently said, “I don’t recall a time in my years in executive management when the business has been this healthy but the equity markets so poorly reflecting that.”

While business is booming and valuations are very attractive, Alan Armstrong and others still fail to appreciate (or at least don’t acknowledge) the crushing effect dividend cuts have had on investor appetite for their stocks. No other explanation fits the facts as well. Some blamed crude oil for the 2014-16 collapse, but MLPs only modestly participated in the subsequent crude rally. Recently we read an analysis that attributed stock weakness to rising leverage, but leverage peaked in 2016 at around 5.5X Debt/EBITDA and is comfortably heading lower. We estimate that our portfolio companies’ will exit next year at 4.1X, comfortably within the range that prevailed before the 2014 MLP market peak.

For almost a decade, Williams Partners (WPZ) investors were trained to expect gently rising distributions that came with a tax deferral and a K-1. This happy arrangement was abandoned when Shale Revolution growth opportunities presented themselves. The first cut came when WPZ combined with Access Midstream (ACMP), formerly Chesapeake’s midstream business before it was spun out. WPZ adopted the lower, ACMP payout which resulted in an effective cut for legacy WPZ holders. Two years later, partly due to concerns about leverage, WPZ imposed a second outright cut. The final one came when WPZ was folded into Williams Companies (WMB), in a “simplification”. WMB’s lower payout was applied to WPZ holders, along with a tax bill on recaptured income.

Long-time WPZ investors have endured a 53% cut in their payouts, which are back to the levels of 2006. Having been taught to focus on distributions and ignore market gyrations, they must find Alan Armstrong’s upbeat comments incongruous if not insulting.

Nonetheless, Alan Armstrong is right that business is good. It’s just that he and his peers have so mistreated their investors that his enthusiasm is less infectious than he might like.

A useful perspective on valuations is to compare pipeline companies’ current EV/EBITDA premium to the energy sector versus its long term average. Even by the unloved standards of the energy sector, midstream infrastructure is historically undervalued.

The American Energy Independence Index (AEITR) includes North America’s biggest pipeline companies, and is 20% weighted to MLPs. Dividends paid by corporations have been more reliable than MLPs; 2018 dividends on the index are up 7%, following a 3% increase last year. By contrast, dividends on the Alerian MLP and Infrastructure Index, as represented by its index fund AMLP, are down 6% following a 16% drop in 2017. Since MLP payouts are a bigger portion of their available cash flow, they had farther to fall. But the limited investor base (largely U.S. individual investors) has inhibited their flexibility in managing cash.

As a result, many large MLPs have converted to corporations, so an MLP-only view of energy infrastructure (as with the Alerian MLP Index for example), fails to fully represent the sector. Moreover, MLP investors invest for income, which has made them an unreliable source of capital when their income is being cut.

In 2019 we expect AEITR dividends to grow high single digits. MLP distributions should also begin growing for the first time since 2014, although not by as much. Corporations generally offer faster, more reliable growth.

We wish all of our readers a Happy Christmas and holiday season. Enjoy the time with family, and we’ll all look forward to a rebound in 2019.

We are invested in ET and WMB. We are short AMLP.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).

 

Weakness in the pipeline sector over the past couple of years has caused soul-searching and changes to corporate structure. Incentive Distribution Rights (IDRs), which syphon off a portion of an MLP’s Distributable Cash Flow (DCF) to the General Partner (GP) running it, have largely gone. Many of the biggest MLPs have abandoned the structure entirely, leaving its narrow set of income-seeking investors to become corporations open to global institutions.

The debate among investors, management and Wall Street about how to unlock value received some useful ideas recently from Wells Fargo. In a presentation titled The Midstream Conundrum…And Ideas For How To Fix It, they make a persuasive case that stock buybacks offer a more attractive use of investment capital than new projects.

This would be a significant shift for MLPs. As recently as five years ago, they paid out 90% or more of their DCF to unitholders and GP (if they had one). The Shale Revolution was only beginning to demand substantial new infrastructure, so they had little else to do with their cash. New projects were funded by borrowing and by issuing equity through secondary offerings.

Shale plays were in regions, such as the Bakken in North Dakota and the Marcellus in Pennsylvania/Ohio, inadequately serviced by pipelines. This broke the model, because the amounts of investment capital required grew substantially. The capital markets loop of paying generous distributions while simultaneously retrieving much of the cash through new debt and equity was no longer sustainable. Dozens of distribution cuts and lower leverage followed, leading to projects being internally financed. This is the new gold standard for the sector – reliance on external capital to fund growth is out.

Wells Fargo takes this logic a step further, asking why excess cash always needs to be reinvested back in the business rather than returned to investors via buybacks. In spite of professed financial discipline, midstream management teams invariably find new things to build, all expected to be accretive (i.e. return more than their cost of capital). Pipeline companies are not alone – the entire energy sector has been dragged by investors to prioritize cash returns over growth. But MLPs rarely buy back stock. Free of a corporate tax liability, MLP distributions aren’t subject to the double taxation of corporate dividends, so raising payouts is a simple way to return cash.

The Midstream Story over the past several years has largely been about financing growth projects. Investor payouts were sacrificed, but rarely did a company admit that its internal cost of capital was too high to justify a new initiative. Wells Fargo is challenging management teams to regard buying back their own stock as a more attractive use of capital than building or acquiring new assets. This is capital management 101 for most industries, but unfamiliar terrain for pipeline stocks. Growth is embedded in the culture. The original justification for the GP/MLP structure with IDRs was to incent management to grow the business. CEOs in other industries find the motivation without such complexity.

In October, virtually every 3Q18 earnings call included an optimistic outlook from management, usually coupled with disbelief at the continued undervaluation of their stock. Attractive valuations mean a high internal cost of capital. Valued by DCF, or Free Cash Flow (FCF) before growth capex, midstream yields are in some cases higher than many companies’ stated Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) targets. Moreover, historic ROIC for the industry has often turned out lower than promised, although it has been improving.

Energy Transfer’s (ET) 16% DCF yield almost certainly offers a higher return than all but their best projects, and suggests they should be repurchasing stock. SemGroup’s (SEMG) DCF is 20%, twice the industry’s historic ROIC.

Growth caused the past four  years’ upheaval, and today’s low valuations are the result. Capital discipline has been less present than CEOs often claim, which is why they’ve apparently responded coolly to Wells Fargo’s buyback recommendation.

DCF yields of 10-14%  or more (as with ET’s 16%) are dramatically higher than FCF yields of 3%, because DCF measures cash generated before funding for growth projects while FCF is after.  FCF yields are set to rise sharply over the next few years, but this crucially relies on new investment coming down. The industry has a habit of showing that peak spending on new projects is imminent, only to push that back another year. 3Q earnings calls saw 2019 estimated capex creep up by almost 20%.

2018 is the fourth year of distribution cuts for MLPs, as reflected in the Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP). Corporations have fared better, and next year we expect dividends on the American Energy Independence Index to grow by 8-9%. If midstream companies are as financially disciplined as they claim, they’ll follow the advice from Wells Fargo in evaluating stock buybacks alongside new investments under consideration. It would complete their metamorphosis into more conventional companies.

 

We are invested in ET and SEMG.

We are short AMLP.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).

Canada’s struggles to get its crude oil to market have been a source of immense frustration if you’re an Albertan oil producer, or a huge success if you’re an anti-fossil fuels activist. Last week, Alberta’s premier Rachel Notley imposed almost a 9% cut in production in order to raise prices. Shortage of available infrastructure had opened up a price discount as wide as $50 per barrel between the bitumen-based Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin, and the WTI benchmark. Unusually, it led to Canadian producers asking the government to intervene.

The heavy, viscous crude from Canada’s oil-sands is reviled by activists because its extraction is particularly disruptive to the local environment, as well as requiring substantial energy inputs to heat it. The Obama Administration repeatedly held up the Keystone XL expansion because of its view that this type of crude should remain in the ground. Alberta has been frustrated at every turn in obtaining cost-effective transport for its output. Earlier this year, Kinder Morgan (KMI) gave up on their Trans Mountain Expansion, intended to increase pipeline capacity west to British Columbia’s Pacific coast. Navigating inter-provincial politics threatened to derail the project, and KMI managed to unload it on the Canadian Federal government not long before an adverse court ruling added further delays (see Canada’s Failing Energy Strategy).

Canada has unique challenges, revealing the weak hand their Federal government has in dealing with its sometimes unruly provinces. But pipeline construction has been hampered in the U.S. too. Energy Transfer’s (ET) Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) was delayed by Obama because of concerns over its proximity to land held sacred by some native American tribes (others were supportive, generally depending on the likelihood of financial gain through the use of their land). Shortly after his inauguration Trump allowed DAPL to move forward. But ET has at times run afoul of regulators during construction, drawing hundreds of violations during the construction of two natural gas pipelines. The industry needs ET to do better.

Shortages of infrastructure in west Texas have led to flaring of natural gas as well as impeding the growth of crude production. The completion of new pipelines by late 2019 should help. The Energy Information Administration expects Permian output to grow by 600 thousand barrels per day next year, to 3.9 Million Barrels per Day (MMB/D). The new pipeline takeaway capacity could enable it to reach 5 MMB/D by 2020, bringing U.S. output close to 13 MMB/D.

New England suffers from too little investment in natural gas infrastructure, with the result that during cold winter months they import liquefied natural gas from Trinidad and Tobago (see An Expensive, Greenish Strategy).

In many parts of the country (apart from Texas and Louisiana), energy infrastructure is becoming steadily harder to build. The losers clearly include consumers, such as those in the north east who have to pay more for electricity. In Canada, clearly oil producers suffer from the steep discount on their production. But less growth in infrastructure increases the value of what currently exists. Because Permian crude can’t all get to its desired destination (usually Cushing, OK or Houston for refining/export) by pipeline, the price differential has at times exceeded $15 per barrel. Regional differentials can support pipeline profits, since when they exceed pipeline tariffs it reflects high demand. Plains All American (PAGP) has been able to charge higher prices on parts of its crude oil pipeline network in Texas for just this reason.

New pipelines enjoy network effects. Connecting a new pipeline to an existing network adds value by increasing destination choices for shippers. This has always represented a hurdle for new entrants to surmount. But the increasing role of judicial challenges by environmental activists serves to further entrench existing operators. The pipeline business is one in which companies needn’t worry too much about a disruptive new upstart taking market share. As a result, today’s big energy infrastructure companies are highly likely to be dominant for many years to come. If new pipelines are harder to build, existing pipelines must be correspondingly more valuable. An unintended consequence of pipeline opposition is to develop a pipeline oligopoly.

Last week Enterprise Products Partners (EPD) gave a presentation at a Wells Fargo conference which emphasized corporate (rather than MLP) measures of performance. By referencing more familiar terms, such as Cash Flow From Operations, rather than the MLP-oriented Distributable Cash Flow, they hope to draw more generalist investors to consider valuations, even while EPD has no plans to convert from an MLP to a corporation. We think it’s a good move – we recently highlighted EPD’s value using discounted cash flows (see Valuing MLPs Privately — Enterprise Products Partners). We also compared pipelines with buildings (see Valuing Pipelines Like Real Estate). A consistent theme from management teams is the disconnect between the strong fundamentals of their businesses and weak stock prices.

Retail sentiment remains poor. Our friend John Cole Scott of Closed End Fund Advisors notes that discounts to NAV on MLP closed end funds are at 8%, more than twice the three year average and 10% wider than the best levels of last spring.

In the Britcom Fawlty Towers, the manic hotel manager Basil Fawlty (played by Monty Python’s John Cleese) is told during one crisis, “…to remember there’s always somebody worse off than yourself.” To which he replies, “Well I’d like to meet him, I could do with a laugh.” (see here at the 1:25 mark).

In that vein, pipeline investors who nowadays believe they’re in the world’s least loved sector should spare a thought for energy services, which have recently exceeded the lows of the 2008-09 financial crisis.

For energy infrastructure investors, we think rising dividends will finally put to rest the concern over serial cuts in payouts.  The American Energy Independence Index contains North America’s biggest pipeline companies, which are mostly corporations but include a few MLPs. It yields 6.25%, and we expect 7-8% dividend growth next year.

We are invested in EPD, ET, KMI and PAGP

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).

Around this time of the year we typically write about MLP seasonals. That’s because the “January effect” has been an enduring pattern of investor activity, far more pronounced than in the broader equity market. Prices would reliably dip in November before firming in December and shooting higher in January. This was due to the combination of income-seeking individual investors with K-1s. Because of the additional tax preparation costs, if you’re planning to sell an MLP in January, you might as well act in December and avoid one more K-1. Similarly, a December purchase delayed until January also avoids a K-1.

Quite possibly, the natural inclination to take stock of life, including investments, around the holiday season resulted in a decision to allocate cash to MLPs. Two years ago, in Give Your Loved One an MLP This Holiday Season, we noted the historic pattern and why purchasing MLPs in early December had worked so consistently.

Although the year-end pattern was most pronounced, there’s also an intra-quarter one. MLP investors love their income. Distributions tend to be declared in the first month of the quarter, payable a few weeks later. Sellers tend to hang on long enough to be a holder of record for the quarter, creating the Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct cycle of positive months.

Much has changed over the past five years. MLPs can no longer be relied upon for steady income. The Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP) recently cut its distribution again, resulting in a 34% cumulative reduction since 2014. Not only did some MLPs with high yields cut their dividends outright to fund growth projects and reduce leverage, but many were purchased by their much lower yielding parent companies, providing “backdoor” distribution cuts to MLP. The consequent betrayal of income-seeking investors has had many casualties, including still-depressed sentiment oblivious to attractive valuations.

Another change has been the breakdown of the seasonal pattern. Having been mistreated, income-seeking investors no longer act so predictably. Over the past five years the January effect has completely gone. So has the quarterly pattern – years ago, when the sector was stable and fairly unexciting, holding your investment a few more weeks so as to get that extra distribution wasn’t inordinately risky. MLP investors have learned to appreciate risk differently, and it’s clear that the calendar bears very little on the timing of today’s buyers and sellers. What’s striking about the past five years is both the randomness of the monthly returns, as well as that the average month is -0.3%. From 1996-2013 it was +1%.

The loss of the seasonal pattern is further evidence that the traditional investor, with her predictable habits developed over years of happy results, has left. It’s why the sector is cheap, because the former buyers have fallen out of love. Thus spurned, large MLPs have converted to corporations in search of new suitors, such that less than half of U.S. midstream infrastructure now retains the MLP format. Many believe the MLP model is irretrievably broken.

Eventually, and possibly quite soon, rising dividends will draw in a new set of buyers. They’ll buy corporations that were formerly MLPs, as well as some of the remaining MLPs. They’ll rely on discounted cash flow analysis (see Valuing MLPs Privately — Enterprise Products Partners). They’ll look beyond the betrayals (see Kinder Morgan: Still Paying for Broken Promises). They’ll find a sector with 11% free cash flow yields before financing new projects, and dividend yields of 6%+ growing at 10% (our 2019 forecast for the American Energy Independence Index).

We are long EPD and KMI. We are short AMLP.

SL Advisors is the sub-advisor to the Catalyst MLP & Infrastructure Fund.  To learn more about the Fund,  please click here.

SL Advisors is also the advisor to an ETF (USAIETF.com).