MJ McNulty
Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead
Thanks, Cody, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today and for your continued support for what we are building here at Acacia. We are pleased with our performance in the third quarter. Our results reflected continued strength at Benchmark, consistent cash generation at Printronix, and strong performance in our public securities portfolio, partially offset by soft end market conditions at Deflecto, where we continue to make operational progress. Together, these results underscore the benefits of our diversified business model. During the quarter, we generated total revenue of $54.4 million. Our total revenue, excluding our intellectual property operations of $54.2 million, increased for the third consecutive quarter and was at a near record. We ended the quarter with $346.3 million in cash, securities, and loans receivable, and no parent company debt, providing us with significant financial flexibility. Our objective has never been to maximize short-term earnings. Instead, we focus on compounding long-term intrinsic value per share through disciplined capital allocation, acquiring businesses at attractive valuations, improving their operations through active ownership, and deploying capital where we believe it can generate attractive long-term returns. The third quarter and the weeks since have offered several examples of that approach in action. At Benchmark, during the quarter, our initial Cherokee well continued to outperform our expectations. Subsequent to quarter end, we completed drilling our second Cherokee well, and we closed dedicated financing of up to $47.5 million to accelerate development of Benchmark's Cleveland drilling inventory, all of which we will discuss shortly. In our public securities portfolio, similar to last quarter, another one of our holdings announced an agreement to be acquired, ultimately generating realized gains for Acacia. Looking ahead, our pipeline remains robust. We continue to actively evaluate attractive opportunities in the private markets, and we're increasingly more active and seeing more compelling opportunities in the public markets, specifically in small and micro-cap businesses that fit our acquisition criteria. We remain patient and disciplined, pursuing only opportunities where we believe our operational expertise and investment approach can create value beyond the purchase price. With that overview, let me turn to our operating businesses, beginning with Benchmark. Benchmark continues to perform well, with operating performance and cash flow exceeding our expectations. Asset level EBITDA is up substantially year-over-year, and we expect to continue that growth into 2027, while operating expenses have remained in line. As we continue growing Adjusted EBITDA, we will also be able to layer in hedges at higher commodity prices and lock those in over time. Our second Cherokee well, Moon Tower, has been online for about a week. While it is early in flowback, results are encouraging and are tracking ahead of our first Cherokee well. In total, Benchmark has approximately five operated Cherokee units, each of which we believe can support two wells. We'll continue to develop these units methodically, bringing cash flow forward where returns support it. As we continue to successfully develop our Cherokee asset, we'll take advantage of opportunities to bolt on additional units and acreage. Subsequent to the quarter end, on October 2nd, Benchmark created a wholly owned bankruptcy remote subsidiary within which it closed a senior secured reserve-based lending facility with Cibolo Energy Partners. This senior secured facility provides up to $47.5 million of borrowing capacity, with initial availability of $27.5 million, of which $18.5 million was funded at closing. The initial draw was complemented by $6 million of equity capital from Benchmark. The proceeds used to fund the new subsidiary are dedicated to an operated multi-well development program targeting Benchmark's Cleveland drilling inventory in the Western Anadarko Basin. The program is initially four wells, with the potential to expand the program over time. The financing is held in a separate special purpose vehicle and is non-recourse to Benchmark's other assets and to Acacia. This structure allows us to accelerate development of attractive locations while isolating the program's risk and preserving balance sheet flexibility. As we've seen in the Cherokee Formation, we're seeing a meaningful increase in Cleveland Formation drilling activity across the Western Anadarko, with excellent results. While results today are substantially better than they were a decade ago, driven by a focus on top-tier rock, disciplined spacing, and modern completion techniques, we believe our Cherokee and Cleveland drilling programs offer an attractive risk-adjusted return profile for Acacia. Our core strategy at Benchmark has been to acquire proved reserves at a discount to their intrinsic value. Most of that value has come through producing reserves, but every acquisition Benchmark has made since its formation in 2023 has also included proved undeveloped locations. Today's market presents an opportunity to begin harvesting some of those locations, which is exactly what our strategy was built to do, take advantage of opportunities as the market presents them. It is worth highlighting how this value creation is reflected in our financial statements. Over the past several quarters, Benchmark has invested meaningful capital in its drilling program. Under GAAP, that capital is recorded at cost, so our book value reflects what we have invested rather than the potential future value of those new reserves. When wells perform as our Cherokee well has, the difference between the underlying future value of these newly added reserves and the GAAP book value of those wells is at its greatest at the beginning of a drilling program. This gap will narrow over time as we generate positive income from that production and the value of the underlying reserves is converted into net income. We are pleased with the initial results from our drilling and believe this program has and will continue to meaningfully increase the intrinsic value of Benchmark's oil and gas assets. Investors should just be aware that this value is not yet reflected in our book value. For a more complete view of this, you will be able to see the change in reserves when we release our year-end 2026 reserve report, which will be filed with our 10-K in the first quarter of 2027. Those proved reserves will provide more granularity on the total value of the assets. It is also worth noting that Benchmark holds significant resource potential that is not included in the proved reserves. Finally, we continue to actively manage our commodity hedging program. Our objective is to generate strong free cash flow, reduce earnings volatility, and protect against downside risk. We do not speculate on commodity prices. Approximately 70% of our expected oil production is currently hedged, and we will continue adding volumes over the next 12 months. In addition, approximately 70% of our expected natural gas production over the next 12 months is hedged, with floors above $4 per MMBtu over the next six months, providing meaningful protection in a relatively soft near-term gas market. Because these hedges are marked to market each quarter, reported results will include non-cash gains and losses, such as the $5.1 million unrealized loss this quarter, which should not be viewed as indicative of the underlying economics of the business. Turning to Deflecto. Revenue for the third quarter was $27.2 million compared to $30.8 million in the prior year period, and adjusted EBITDA was $1 million compared to $2.6 million in the prior year period. Results were driven primarily by softer demand in our air distribution end markets, specifically in the Canadian and U.S. housing markets, coupled with increased input costs. While our office products end market showed a revenue decline, this was primarily driven by the decline in revenues associated with the sale of our floor mat business, which we sold in November of 2025. Our transportation safety revenues have held steady year-over-year, and we're optimistic about the positive trends we're seeing in the underlying Class 8 market. We were encouraged, however, that performance improved as the quarter progressed, with September showing a meaningful step-up in profitability. We believe that improvement reflects the actions we've taken over the past several quarters, optimizing our manufacturing footprint, reducing product lead times, streamlining the organization, tightening cost discipline, and executing on pricing. These initiatives have fundamentally and structurally enhanced Deflecto's earnings potential. We are optimistic about the opportunities in the transportation market and remain focused on what we can control. We're encouraged that the actions we've taken to simplify operations and reduce our cost base position Deflecto to benefit from improved profitability in a recovering demand environment. Turning to Printronix. Printronix continued to perform well and generate consistent free cash flow. We continue to leverage the strength of its installed base and global distribution network to expand sales of higher-margin consumables and complementary products. Through the quarter, we continued to grow the installed printer base and operated the business with disciplined cost management. During the quarter, Printronix generated revenue of $7.5 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $1.5 million. While small to the overall portfolio, we've been pleased with the operational and commercial turnaround of the business. Turning to our intellectual property platform. During the quarter, we continued to pursue monetization of our Wi-Fi 6 and other portfolios and generated licensing revenue of approximately $300,000. As a reminder, licensing activity is inherently episodic and is best evaluated over longer periods. We have a positive view of the value that remains in the portfolio, both in Wi-Fi 6 as well as in our R2 patents. We have also further reduced the platform's overhead to better align its cost structure with the timing and nature of licensing opportunities, which we believe should enhance the platform's go-forward earnings profile as future licensing opportunities are realized. Lastly, turning to our public securities portfolio, which continued to perform well during the quarter. During the third quarter, another one of our public company investments announced an agreement to be acquired, generating realized gains of $8.2 million for Acacia. Similar to last quarter, this demonstrates our ability to identify undervalued businesses, build strategic positions with discipline, and monetize those investments when the risk-reward becomes compelling. Our public markets investments are an extension of our broader capital allocation strategy. When we identify a business that may fit our platform, we can establish an initial position while conducting additional due diligence and evaluating a potential strategic transaction. We also remain disciplined in managing existing positions, monetizing investments when they approach our assessment of intrinsic value, and redeploying capital where we see more attractive opportunities. With that, I'll hand the call over to Mike to review our financial results in greater detail.