Earnings Labs

Martin Midstream Partners L.P. (MMLP)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Apr 30, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Martin Midstream Partners' LP First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we'll conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would like to introduce our host for today's conference Mr. Bob Bondurant Chief Financial Officer. Sir you may begin.

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

Thank you, [Tiara]. Let everyone know who is on the call today. We have Joe McCreery, our Vice President of Finance and Head of Investor Relations; and Wes Martin, our Vice President of Corporate Development and unfortunately Ruben Martin is on airplane at this very moment; he will not be able to join us this morning. But before we get started with the financial and operational results for the first quarter, I need to make this disclaimer. Certain statements made during this conference call may be forward-looking statements relating to financial forecasts, future performance, and our ability to make distributions to unit holders We report our financial results in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and use certain non-GAAP financial measures within the meanings of the SEC Regulation G, such as distributed cash flow, or DCF; and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA; and we also use adjusted EBITDA. We use these measures because we believe it provides users of our financial information with meaningful comparisons between current results and prior reported results, and it can be a meaningful measure of the Partnership's cash available to pay distributions. We also included in our press release issued yesterday a reconciliation of EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow to the most comparable GAAP financial measure. Our earnings press release is available at our website, www.martinmidstream.com. Now I'd like to discuss our first quarter 2015 performance compared to the fourth quarter of '14. For the first quarter we had adjusted EBITDA of 15.4 million compared to 42.6 million in the fourth quarter, an 18% increase totaling 7.8 million. Our distributed cash flow for the first quarter was $37.1 million, a distribution coverage of 1.12 times based on our distribution of 33.2 million paid out in the first quarter. This…

Joe McCreery

Analyst

Thanks Bob. I'll start with our normal walk through the debt components of the balance sheet and our bank ratios. I’d then like to discuss the partnership's outlook and provide some insight on our current growth projects. On March 31, 2015, the partnerships balance sheet reflected total long-term funded debt of approximately $849.4 million. This balance sheet debt level is now net of unamortized debt issuance and unamortized issuance premiums reflecting the incorporation recent changes in accounting standards. Whereby debt issuance cost related to a recognized debt liability presented in the balance sheet are now direct deduction from the carrying amount of that debt liability. Before [indiscernible] adjustments of $12.6 million of our revolving credit facility balance was 460 million and our senior unsecured notes for 402 million for a quarter over quarter [comp] debt of $862 million. Thus the partnership’s total available liquidity under the revolving credit facility at March 31, 2015 was $440 million. For the first quarter of 2015 our bank compliant leverage ratios defined as senior secured indebtedness to adjusted EBITDA and total indebtedness to adjusted EBITDA were 2.51 times and 4.69 times respectively. Additionally, our bank compliant interest coverage ratio as defined by adjusted EBITDA to total consolidated interest expense was 3.89 times. Looking at the balance sheet, total debt to total capitalization at March 31, 2015 was 64.4%. In all at March 31 the Partnership was in full compliance of all banking covenants financial or otherwise. The Partnership had no capital raises during the first quarter as we elected not to issue equity in this environment under our ATM nor access the debt capital markets. So now I’d like to discuss the environment in which the Partnership is currently operating. As we mentioned last call and at our Analyst Day, we thought strongly that…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] our first question comes from the line of Gabe Moreen of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.

Gabe Moreen

Analyst

Couple of questions I guess to start with West Texas LPG, just on those interconnection that you talking about with potential additional 15,000 barrels; Is that something where the producers are going to spending the CapEx to basically connect to the system and then also can you talk about of what are you EBITDA contribution that you are expecting from that incremental volume will be?

Wes Martin

Analyst

Hi Gabe, I'll take that, in terms of the expected EBITDA contribution, now we can't really talk about that right now, but with respect to the interconnect; I think that would be most likely the producers investing their capital to make that happen, may be in a few situation it might be the opposite. But I think, overall it would more so be on producer’s side.

Gabe Moreen

Analyst

Understood. And I guess shifting to Corpus potential expansion, is there real potential variability in terms of the size of that investment depending on how commercial customers come back? And is it something where you could -- I think you laid out 50 to 60 million [indiscernible] small or bigger, and as our expectation at this point?

Wes Martin

Analyst

Yeah. I think yes, there is some variability behind that and I think it could be larger or smaller depend on customer needs. Right now we are still comfortable with the call of plus or minus $60 million concept that we threw out at the investor day but yes, there is a chance that it could go higher or lower than that but right now we think 60 is probably right number.

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

And I will just add that I think we are honing in, Gabe, about 400,000 barrels of additional storage and that's driving that number at this point.

Gabe Moreen

Analyst

Understood, and then last question, it's kind of clichéd one, but it seems someone’s going to ask if it’s now me, is just in terms of the distribution policy. Obviously the unit prices recovered from the doldrums that was out a couple of months ago, although I'm sure it’s not as high as you like to see it, covered was good, you’ve proven pretty resilient, how are you thinking about the distribution in the environment you’re in right now?

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

This is Bob, I'll take that I think we as a group of management and the board would like to see continued improved distribution coverage. We're very pleased with the way we covered in the first quarter, especially with the IDR's kicking back in, so in the near term we want to build that distribution coverage a bit before we start ramping backup with some increased distributions.

Wes Martin

Analyst

And all I like to add, I think with respective to -- if you look at historically on a quarterly basis, we do have some of the seasonality going into the second and third quarter, so I think we'd like to see the second and third quarters play out and again into Bobs point, bill that coverage a little bit more before we'll do that.

Operator

Operator

Thank you [Operator Instructions] our next question comes from the line of T.J. Schultz from RBC Capital Markets, your line is now open.

T.J. Schultz

Analyst

So the $30 to $35 million CapEx for the South Texas projects; just so I’m clear that's not in the 2015 CapEx guidance right now, is that correct?

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

That’s correct.

T.J. Schultz

Analyst

Okay, when is to have a near term to green light that project and then how quickly would you be spending money on that project.

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

Sure, in terms of the timing of it, I think are the process; internally we're wrapping up the front-end engineering design work, working on some of the permuting but I think ultimately we would plan to bring that to the board probably late second quarter, early third quarter and go for board approval on that front. Also systems are go on that front from our perspective right now. But we would hope to take it to the board by the end of the second quarter, early third quarter and the time of the CapEx on that would probably begin immediately thereafter. So I would say it’s linked somewhat in the third quarter and then start to ramp up in the fourth quarter of this year.

T.J. Schultz

Analyst

Okay, so and your $65 million CapEx budget right now for '15, is it fair stage between that project and then if you spend a third of the capital on the Corpus your upside may be up to about $100 million of CapEx of this projects before?

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

I think that’s on the high side and I don’t think we'll quite spend that much in 2015, to be honest I think, with respect to the Southeast -- South Texas Terminal, that will be a little bit -- it's a longer project, that's going to -- the timing of that would be end of 2016. So I would say that would be on a high side I would say probably closer to the at 80 million -- 85 million plus or minus.

T.J. Schultz

Analyst

Okay, so leverage at quarter end was still around 4.7 times, have u utilized ATM in April or just general thoughts there on a view to get, below that or around that closer to the 4.5, I think is your target leverage?

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

Right, that is the target, correct. And T.J. I think, we’re getting closure, I'd say that. Obviously we did not use the ATM in the first quarter, I think we are creeping back into the range where we might consider it again and going to the board and say we think there is some de-levering that needs to be accomplished here. But I think for now, we're probably going to limp along at port seven-ish in the near term, but we're getting closure.

T.J. Schulz

Analyst

And then just any update on discussion with the general Partners on potential dropdown or transactions there? That’s it for me.

Wes Martin

Analyst

I think even though our unit price recovered pretty strongly in the first quarter given where we are on a yield base and our cost of capital right, it makes doing a deal -- particular a large one pretty difficult from our standpoint. So our focus internally is to continue to be blocking and tackling if you will and focusing on the things that we can control. As we mentioned at the Investor Day we -- and I think in the previously earnings call talked about refocused on the drawdown storage. But I think when you really look at the numbers and you look at where our cost of capital is right now anything on that front would be pretty difficult to get to. So, I think when we look at that sort of possibility out in the future again I think we talked about coverage a little bit trying to improve our coverage’s and I think we’d like to see a little bit more consistent performance internally through these next, second and third quarters to help sort of hopefully in the longer run drive that cost of capital down a little bit and then make it a little bit -- any material improvements on that front essentially I think coming from those efforts would put us in a better position. But as we said right now, there is really on developments on that front.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time, I am showing no further participants in the queue. I’d like to turn the call back to management for any closing remarks.

Bob Bondurant

Analyst

Thank you, Terry and this is Bob speaking. We’re very pleased that the Partnership is off to really a great start in ’15 and we continue to see relative strength in the business so far in Q2. We anticipate there is going to be less seasonal weakness in the second and third quarter relative to previous years as we see a shift in some of our fertilizer cash flow through the same quarter to the farmers’ planning issues. We also have some good contracts in the butane business lined up in the second and third quarter. And now we have the Cardinal baked into our business so there is a good stability of cash flow there. So again we’ll probably see less seasonal weakness than historically we’ve had in the second and third quarter. And finally, our packaging business is continuing to show a positive trend line; especially from where it was at the end of 2014. So all in all, very pleased with the quarter, very pleased with the prospects and very pleased that you joined us on the call this morning. And thank you for your attendance and appreciate your covering us. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today’s conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.