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Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation (MGY)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 15, 2018

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Transcript

Brian Corales

Management

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Magnolia Oil & Gas' Third Quarter 2018 Earnings and Inaugural Conference Call. Participating on the call today are Steve Chazen, Magnolia's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Stavros, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, today's conference call contains certain projections and other forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Additional information on risk factors that could cause results to differ is available in the company's proxy statement filed with the SEC. A full safe harbor can be found on Slide 2 of the conference call slide presentation with the supplemental data on our website. You can download Magnolia's third quarter 2018 earnings press release as well as the conference call slides from the Investor section of the company's website at www.magnoliaoilgas.com. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Steve Chazen.

Steve Chazen

Management

Thank you. Well, seems like just yesterday I was -- I ended my 63rd call -- earnings call at Occi, given my current age is unlikely that I'll be able to do 63 here. So in my remarks, I'll referred to both GAAP and pro forma financial information. Chris will discuss this in more detail, but for reference, the pro forma information includes the results of the Karnes assets, Giddings assets and the subsequent Gulftex assets that were acquired by EnerVest on March 1, 2018 for all periods presented and excludes transaction costs. Literally, the financial statements to read are fairly complicated and the most useful, I think, is to talk about the pro forma. When we originally set out to create a publicly traded independent E&P company, which is now Magnolia, we did so with the understanding that had to be investable within an energy sector that had generally struggled to perform both absolutely and relative to the S&P 500 over the last decade. Our business model was designed to be differentiated and with the primary objective to generate stock market value over the long term. Our strategy was to establish company's characteristics would demonstrate a certain basic set of criteria that would appeal to generalist investors, who are more accustomed to an industrial model. There were several basic elements to our business model and we're off to a good start so far as we've exceeded on the delivery of our objectives. We've summarized this on Slide 4 of the presentation slides. We expect to generate real GAAP net income and growing earnings per share overtime. Magnolia's pro forma net income for the third quarter of 2018 was approximately $58 million and a $151 million in the first 9 months of this year. One of our goal is to…

Chris Stavros

Management

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Before I walk through some of the numbers, I'd like to talk for a moment about the corporate structure and financial recording implications that you may notice as a result of the business combination. As a result of the closing of the transaction with EnerVest in the third quarter, U.S. GAAP requires us to present the financial statements for the period prior to the acquisition, which include the results of only the Karnes County asset as the predecessor, while the financial statements on or after July 31, include the results of both the Karnes County and the Giddings Field assets and one month of the results of the Harvest acquisition, which we refer to as successor. We were also required to allocate the fair market value of the acquisitions to our individual assets, including oil and gas properties based on their estimated fair values. As a result, the financial statements on or after July 31 lacked comparability with those prior to that date. We recognized that this required presentation format may make it difficult to compare the predecessor's successor periods. So wherever possible, we will try to provide additional context between the two periods in order to try and help you understand the underlying financial and operational trends of the business. We will also sometimes refer to pro forma information, which includes the results of both the Karnes and the Giddings assets as if they had been combined as of January 1, 2017. As Steve noted, the pro forma results also include the results of the GulfTex acquisition that occurred on March 1, 2018, as if it had been included in all periods presented, but exclude any nonrecurring items such as transaction costs. Additionally, it's important to note that Magnolia has adopted an…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Neal Dingmann from SunTrust.

Neal Dingmann

Analyst

Steve for you or Chris, my question is really just when you add that second rig or maybe talk about both the rigs in the Giddings Field. Could you talk about where you believe the focus will be there at least initially to start off next year?

Steve Chazen

Management

No. With the second rig especially, we'll be looking at different areas, not necessarily where we've drilled so far to try to see what that might be there probably some in the south and then some probably in the -- in our northeast -- northwest corner of it right now. As the results come in, that rig is in development mode and so we'll probably move that around as the year progresses. It's still -- we're still really in our early days of this, and I think the planning should be viewed as flexible for the next year.

Neal Dingmann

Analyst

Okay. And then just lastly, anything you could add, just I know you guys have been great on bolt-on acquisitions on timing behind the use, many things and the size potentially?

Steve Chazen

Management

Well, we look at a lot of stuff. So and we just -- we expect there'll be some in this quarter, probably fairly small, but we don't -- we're not interested in large public deals. And they're not very many of these large private deals either. So I would accept that there will be some modest growth in -- from that in the fourth quarter and maybe more in the first quarter. There's volatility that were currently enjoying or experiencing however you want to describe it, probably makes more acquisitions likely as people get more nervous. And to some extent, we're setup to respond to that.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell from Tuohy Brothers. You’re now live.

Jeffrey Campbell

Analyst

Can you disclose -- yes, well, you record precedes itself. Can you disclose how much your Giddings average working interest increased due to the Harvest acquisition?

Steve Chazen

Management

I think it's about 15%, 15 percentage points.

Jeffrey Campbell

Analyst

And it was mentioned that you're going to add rig in Giddings first quarter next year. Will Giddings still be a self-funding program with the two-rig program?

Steve Chazen

Management

Yes. But it won't be -- it probably won't be a 50%, 60%, it'll probably closer to 100%. So we'll probably use all the cash flow from Giddings to work Giddings and Karnes will probably continue at sort of around 50%, I would guess.

Jeffrey Campbell

Analyst

And if I could ask one last one, because I don't see it on the presentation. Are you currently hedging any production and what's your approach to hedging going forward?

Steve Chazen

Management

No. If we had to, we would buy insurance, but that's the only reason we would hedge. My track record in predicting oil and gas prices are pretty crummy, and so -- and I can prove that to you, if I had to. So the idea is that you hedge when you need to, you need to protect your capital program or you need to predict your balance sheet and we're designed to do that. I assume the good folks who sell hedging products actually make money on it. So I just -- I'm really not in the business of enriching Goldman Sachs.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Irene Haas from Imperial Capital. You’re now live.

Irene Haas

Analyst

I was noticing that your NGL pricing was quite strong this quarter. Could you give us a little color on that? Should we expect the same trend next quarter? Then secondarily, how is your in-house staffing coming along? Because you still probably has that service contract with EnerVest team, and when would you bring in a COO?

Steve Chazen

Management

Well, we actually hired a operating executive who was announced, Steve Millican, So we hired an operating executive last few weeks ago. And we refiled because he's our reporting person. So he was at EnerVest. He ran their south, the stuff we bought essentially. So we have an operating person. And we're in no hurry at all. Right now, the EnerVest people are doing a great job for us at reasonable cost. And there's no real reason to change that unless it changes. As far as the NGL pricing goes, NGL pricing has been strong. And there's no reason to think it's going to change for this quarter. It's been running pretty good, it's a percentage of WTI, probably its percentage is up as the WTI price seems to want to decline a $1 of barrel a day.

Irene Haas

Analyst

Right. And also gas prices looking pretty good. So you guys should be positioned to enjoy that as well?

Steve Chazen

Management

Yes. And we nearly produce about 80 million a day roughly in gas. So it was at $1 change basically. So $80,000 a day roughly speaking, I think that not so bad.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Grampp from Northland Capital Markets. You are now live.

Jeff Grampp

Analyst

Sticking over on Giddings, can you guys maybe touch a little bit on how maybe some of the recent wells that you've recently completed, how those have been performing? And maybe how some of the longer term performances has been from the first few batch of wells that you guys announced earlier this year?

Steve Chazen

Management

I think when we started this we said that one of our goals was not to provide a lot of detail because there's still open acreage and so we'll file when we have to. But generally speaking, the wells have been performing in line with the ones we disclosed in the offering. So there's been some small decline but clearly, a lot of these wells are -- we had a well making 1,000 barrels a day of oil, that's been making it for 6 months. So I mean, it's pretty good, but it's not perfect there. Obviously, there's things that some are a little better than others, but we haven't drilled really bad wells. But given enough time, enough wells, I'm sure we will. We'll file when we have to and you'll be able to see the wells as we file them. But generally speaking, we've been pleasantly surprised.

Jeff Grampp

Analyst

I'm curious as you guys look into '19 here with the added rig in Giddings, do you guys need a frac crew that would support each of the activities in each kind of operating area? Or would you look to keep one crew and bounce it back and forth in '19 or is that kind of...

Steve Chazen

Management

We'll probably keep the single crew. Unless we pick up some -- the Giddings, because the other wells is going to drilling sort of one-off wells rather than development wells, it's going to be a little slower than we might have in the development mode. And so we ought to be able to make do with the single crew. It makes a production a little lumpier than we might like, because all of a sudden it's going along you think you know it, and all of a sudden you turn on some wells and you get a big run up. But you're watching quarterly numbers, it's maybe a little confusing.

Jeff Grampp

Analyst

And then last one from me. We've seen a couple of nonenergy specs lately do some tender offers on some warrants. And I was just curious if you guys have given that any consideration? Obviously, it's generating a lot of free cash and that's kind of a roundabout way of a buyback, which you kind of referenced earlier. So I was just kind of curious to get your thoughts on some sort of transactional thing related to the warrants.

Steve Chazen

Management

Yes. We view the warrants as having exceptional value. I think that's probably all we can say about it.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Michael McAllister from MUFG Securities. You are now live.

Michael McAllister

Analyst

Welcome back to all. Well...

Steve Chazen

Management

I don't know about that. I'm still thinking about how I can get out of this in the future.

Michael McAllister

Analyst

What was -- if you could, what was Harvest production at the close of the deal?

Steve Chazen

Management

About the same as it is now. Same as what we said. It was heavily towards the Giddings, the production was almost entirely Giddings, I think. And so you can see where the Giddings production is. So it's about what we said for the beginning when it closed, because it'll mirror pretty close to growth that's in our outlook for Giddings. Maybe a little better on average because the locations are little -- some of the locations are better.

Michael McAllister

Analyst

Okay. And with the thought of getting bigger, what about going outside of the two core areas in acquisitions?

Steve Chazen

Management

Well, I think what we said to that question over time is you don't have to fit the business model. So 50%, 60% of the cash flow to grow the business 10% to 15% a year, high operating margins, 40%, 50% EBIT margins. It would take a -- so that implies a high quality reservoir. And it would take a considerable reduction in purchase price to make that work, because I count purchase price as part of the EBIT calculation. A lot of people ignored the purchase price because it's the noncash charge DD&A, once was cash, but now it's noncash. So I think we're just cautious about going out, if we could find an exceptional value we would consider that, but we spent a year looking for that and didn't find it. So I think there might be something, but it's probably not imminent.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Joe Evans from SG Capital. You are now live.

Joe Evans

Analyst

It's John Evans. I was just curious...

Steve Chazen

Management

No, he has -- the guy in the thing doesn't work for us.

Joe Evans

Analyst

Yes, known and honest. I was just letting you know. Just from the standpoint, you're building this kind of unique company, from a generalist standpoint. And I guess, I was hoping maybe you could help me understand how you guys go about thinking spending the extra EBITDA that you have relative to dividends or stock buybacks as opposed to just buying more oil and gas properties, etcetera. A lot of industrial companies obviously do that overtime and I'm curious to understand your guys' thought process towards that.

Steve Chazen

Management

Okay. So the oil and gas, if you can buy oil and gas properties that fit the business model. Let's just say, you earn these good EBIT, it doesn't dilute us. Good EBIT and you can have generate an aggregate growth out of it, a 10%, 15% organic growth with under 60% of the cash, then that's a non-dilutive acquisition, we go do that. If you get -- eventually, you would think there'll be more happiness in the oil industry and the opportunities to do that goes away. And so once we can't do that anymore, then we'll turn our attention to either dividends or share repurchases or both. We're not -- we don't plan to -- there's not hardly any float anyway, so you wouldn't to go in the open market now to buy any shares. So -- and so, obviously EnerVest has shares but I'm not sure there are sellers at current prices. So I think you -- it's just a matter what -- where the value would be at the time. The bias, if it's neutral between the share repurchase and dividends, my bias historically been for dividends. Easier to count.

Joe Evans

Analyst

And then just a follow-up question. Within this tumultuous slide that we've seen in crude, do you think that gives you better opportunity as you go into next year to make some of these accretive bolt-on acquisitions?

Steve Chazen

Management

I hope so. It's the old line about when everyone is frightened, we're greedy, and when everyone is complacent, we dose off. So generally speaking, in a buoyant environment where everybody's all happy, probably less opportunities, for sure. In a more volatile environment, people get more frightened and we set the company up, so we don't have to be frightened.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, we have no further questions in queue at this time. I'd like to turn to the floor back to management for closing.

Steve Chazen

Management

Thank you all. Appreciate your time today.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude our teleconference for today. You may now disconnect your line at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.