Opinions
Eric Nuttall
Legacy Oil and Gas Inc.
LEG-T
TOP PICK
Sep 25, 2013
Stock price when the opinion was issued
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He recently covered his Short on this, because he was expecting this bounce. However, the stock has not bounced a lot. They recently cut their dividend. He would stay away from this. He will re-short if there is any bounce heading into January. Fundamentals are deteriorating. Other companies that you might consider are Mart Resources (MMT-T) and ??? (See Top Picks.)
Balance sheet was a little too high at $60 oil, and now we are in $48 oil for the time being, so leverage is becoming more and more of an issue. Thankfully they don’t have dividend stress on their balance sheet, but at the current oil price, their debt to cash flow is an excess of 6 times. They will be in a stressed environment and may have to explore non-core asset sales.
He did a lot of trimming of oil in Oct/Nov, including this one. It has a levered balance sheet, but has really good assets. Probably a trading vehicle now. If you think oil is going to $65-$70 by the end of the year, the stock will be up, but if oil goes to $40 and stays there, they would be in financial difficulty. If you Buy, don’t stay in it for very long.
Legacy (LEG-T) or Surge (SGY-T)? Hands down, he would own Surge. This one is in trouble right now. Balance sheet debt is very high; possibly 7 or 8 times cash flow. Their CFO just left. They are looking at any and all options to right side the balance sheet and just get through this trough period.
Great assets. Unfortunately a little bit of mismanagement has caused the debt to be too high for investors’ appetites. There has been a lot of shareholder value destroyed by the company. Thinks the company is worth in the $4 range, but to get there it has to do some real strategic reshuffling of the deck. Management has been talking about doing something for 6 months now, but nothing has happened. Prefers others.
The kind of stock you would buy if you were really bullish on oil right. Has good production and strong management. The current debt/cash flow ratio is huge at something like 5 or 7 times. This is why the stock has been pummelled so badly. If oil prices do another downturn or stay down for a period of time, companies like this are at a financial risk. He thinks oil will check back into the $50 range.
Stock was killed for much of 2012. They have continued to execute. Had 5 quarters where they beat estimates and thinks it will do so again in Q3. For this year and 2014, spending cash flow they will be able to pay down their debt and grow cash flow by about 13%. Feels debt to cash flow will come down to 1.6 times. US investors are becoming more interested when they see how cheap mid-cap light oil growth companies are. Have a 15 year drilling inventory. Value of their known reserves is about $9.50. Through identified inventory that they haven’t booked, they think they can double that. Ultimate potential value of the shares would be in the mid-teens if not higher. He is looking for $9.