Natural resource partners l.p. reports first quarter 2019 results
Houston--(business wire)--natural resource partners l.p. (nyse:nrp) today reported first quarter 2019 results as follows: last twelvemonths (in thousands, except per unit data) (unaudited) _________________________ (1) see "non-gaap financial measures" and reconciliation tables at the end of this release. “nrp started the year with a solid quarter of financial results, continued robust cash flow generation and paid off $86 million of debt,” commented nrp’s president and chief operating officer, craig nunez. “additionally, in april we successfully refinanced our $100 million revolving credit facility, extending the maturity from 2020 to 2023, and we issued $300 million of 9.125% unsecured bonds due 2025, which will be used along with cash on hand to redeem our existing $346 million of 10.5% bonds later this month, lowering our total debt by an additional $46 million. we are pleased with the results of these transactions and remain committed to continue strengthening our balance sheet to further de-lever and de-risk the partnership.” nrp’s liquidity was $229.7 million at march 31, 2019, consisting of $112.4 million of cash, $17.3 million of cash restricted for debt repayment and $100.0 million of borrowing capacity available under its credit facility. after giving effect to the refinancing transactions, nrp’s liquidity as of march 31, 2019 would have been approximately $154 million, consisting of approximately $54 million of cash and $100 million of borrowing capacity. nrp’s consolidated debt-to-adjusted ebitda ratio at march 31, 2019, excluding the one-time, beneficial hillsboro settlement, was 2.9x, and after giving effect to the refinancing transactions it will improve to 2.7x. nrp’s cash flow cushion for the last twelve months ended march 31, 2019 was $32.5 million. cash flow cushion represents the amount of free cash flow left over after payment of mandatory debt amortizations and preferred and common unit distributions. nrp declared a cash distribution of $0.45 per common unit and a cash distribution of $7.5 million on nrp’s preferred units for the first quarter of 2019. in addition, nrp declared a one-time special cash distribution of $0.85 per common unit to cover the common unitholders’ tax liability resulting from the sale of nrp’s construction aggregates business in december 2018. first quarter segment results (unaudited) _________________________ (1) see "non-gaap financial measures" and reconciliation tables at the end of this release. coal royalty and other solid first quarter 2019 results were driven by continued stable performance from nrp's metallurgical and thermal coal properties. first quarter 2019 revenues, net income and adjusted ebitda were positively impacted by higher average coal royalty revenue per ton and increased coal overriding royalty revenues from nrp's williamson property in the illinois basin. in addition, nrp recorded $2.8 million of revenue from its hillsboro property in the first quarter of 2019, compared to zero in the prior year quarter, following the settlement of the foresight litigation in the fourth quarter of 2018. consistent with the prior year quarter, approximately 65% of nrp's coal royalty revenues and approximately 55% of its coal royalty production was derived from metallurgical coal during the three months ended march 31, 2019. distributable cash flow and free cash flow increased compared to the prior year quarter primarily as a result of the timing of cash collections and the collection of lease amendment fees in the first quarter of 2019. soda ash soda ash segment operating performance increased compared to the prior year quarter primarily as a result of an increase in production and sales volumes and higher domestic and international sales prices compared to the prior year quarter. adjusted ebitda, distributable cash flow and free cash flow decreased $2.5 million compared to the prior year quarter as a result of a lower cash distribution received from ciner wyoming in the first quarter of 2019. corporate and finance corporate and finance segment results improved compared to the prior year quarter primarily due to lower interest expense as a result of nrp’s continued debt repayment. conference call a conference call will be held today at 10:00 a.m. et. to join the conference call, dial (844) 379-6938 and provide the conference code 55454892. investors may also listen to the call via the investor relations section of the nrp website at www.nrplp.com. to access the replay, please visit the investor relations section of nrp’s website. company profile natural resource partners l.p., a master limited partnership headquartered in houston, tx, is a diversified natural resource company that owns, manages and leases a diversified portfolio of mineral properties in the united states including interests in coal, industrial minerals and other natural resources. a large percentage of nrp’s revenues are generated from royalties and other passive income. in addition, nrp owns an equity investment in ciner wyoming, a trona/soda ash operation. for additional information, please contact tiffany sammis at 713-751-7515 or tsammis@nrplp.com. further information about nrp is available on the partnership’s website at http://www.nrplp.com. forward-looking statements this press release includes “forward-looking statements” as defined by the securities and exchange commission. all statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that the partnership expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. these statements are based on certain assumptions made by the partnership based on its experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate in the circumstances. such statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of the partnership. these risks include, but are not limited to, commodity prices; decreases in demand for coal, aggregates and industrial minerals, including trona/soda ash; changes in operating conditions and costs; production cuts by our lessees; unanticipated geologic problems; our liquidity, leverage and access to capital and financing sources; changes in the legislative or regulatory environment, litigation risk, and other factors detailed in natural resource partners’ securities and exchange commission filings. natural resource partners l.p. has no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. non-gaap financial measures “adjusted ebitda” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as net income (loss) from continuing operations less equity earnings from unconsolidated investment, net income attributable to non-controlling interest and gain on reserve swap; plus total distributions from unconsolidated investment, interest expense, net, debt modification expense, loss on extinguishment of debt, depreciation, depletion and amortization and asset impairments. adjusted ebitda should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income or loss, net income or loss attributable to partners, operating income, cash flows from operating activities or any other measure of financial performance presented in accordance with gaap as measures of operating performance, liquidity or ability to service debt obligations. there are significant limitations to using adjusted ebitda as a measure of performance, including the inability to analyze the effect of certain recurring items that materially affect our net income (loss), the lack of comparability of results of operations of different companies and the different methods of calculating adjusted ebitda reported by different companies. in addition, adjusted ebitda presented below is not calculated or presented on the same basis as consolidated ebitda as defined in our partnership agreement or consolidated ebitdda as defined in opco’s debt agreements. adjusted ebitda is a supplemental performance measure used by our management and by external users of our financial statements, such as investors, commercial banks, research analysts and others to assess the financial performance of our assets without regard to financing methods, capital structure or historical cost basis. “distributable cash flow” or “dcf” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as net cash provided by (used in) operating activities of continuing operations plus distributions from unconsolidated investment in excess of cumulative earnings, proceeds from sales of assets, including sales of discontinued operations, and return of long-term contract receivables (including affiliate); less maintenance capital expenditures and distributions to non-controlling interest. dcf is not a measure of financial performance under gaap and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities. dcf may not be calculated the same for us as for other companies. in addition, distributable cash flow is not calculated or presented on the same basis as distributable cash flow as defined in our partnership agreement, which is used as a metric to determine whether we are able to increase quarterly distributions to our common unitholders. distributable cash flow is a supplemental liquidity measure used by our management and by external users of our financial statements, such as investors, commercial banks, research analysts and others to assess our ability to make cash distributions and repay debt. “free cash flow” or “fcf” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as net cash provided by (used in) operating activities of continuing operations plus distributions from unconsolidated investment in excess of cumulative earnings and return of long-term contract receivables (including affiliate); less maintenance and expansion capital expenditures, cash flow used in acquisition costs classified as financing activities and distributions to non-controlling interest. fcf is calculated before mandatory debt repayments. free cash flow is not a measure of financial performance under gaap and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities. free cash flow may not be calculated the same for us as for other companies. free cash flow is a supplemental liquidity measure used by our management and by external users of our financial statements, such as investors, commercial banks, research analysts and others to assess our ability to make cash distributions and repay debt. “free cash flow excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as free cash flow excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items. free cash flow excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items is not a measure of financial performance under gaap and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities. free cash flow excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items may not be calculated the same for us as for other companies. free cash flow excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items is a supplemental liquidity measure used by our management to assess our ability to make cash distributions and repay debt. “cash flow cushion” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as free cash flow excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items less mandatory opco debt amortization payments, preferred unit distributions and common unit distributions. cash flow cushion is not a measure of financial performance under gaap and should not be considered as an alternative to cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities. cash flow cushion is a supplemental liquidity measure used by our management to assess the partnership’s ability to make or raise cash distributions to our common and preferred unitholders and our general partner and repay debt or redeem preferred units. “return on capital employed” or “roce” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as net income from continuing operations plus interest expense divided by the sum of equity excluding equity of discontinued operations, and debt. return on capital employed should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income or loss, net income or loss attributable to partners, operating income, cash flows from operating activities or any other measure of financial performance presented in accordance with gaap as measures of operating performance, liquidity or ability to service debt obligations. return on capital employed is a supplemental performance measure used by our management team that measures our profitability and efficiency with which our capital is employed. the measure provides an indication of operating performance before the impact of leverage in the capital structure. “return on capital employed excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items” is a non-gaap financial measure that we define as return on capital employed excluding one-time beneficial items. return on capital employed excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items should not be considered an alternative to, or more meaningful than, net income or loss, net income or loss attributable to partners, operating income, cash flows from operating activities or any other measure of financial performance presented in accordance with gaap as measures of operating performance, liquidity or ability to service debt obligations. return on capital employed excluding discontinued operations and one-time beneficial items is a supplemental performance measure used by our management team that measures our profitability and efficiency with which our capital is employed excluding the impact of one-time beneficial items. the measure provides an indication of operating performance before the impact of leverage in the capital structure and excluding the impact of one-time beneficial items. -financial tables, reconciliation of non-gaap measures and recap of metrics follow- (in thousands, except per unit data) (in thousands) (in thousands, except unit data) partners' capital accumulated excluding common unitholders other non- non- controlling controlling interest _________________________ capital accumulated common unitholders other non- non- controlling interest interest _________________________ natural resource partners l.p. financial tables (unaudited) the following tables present nrp’s unaudited business results by segment for the three months ended march 31, 2019 and 2018 and december 31, 2018: (in thousands) _________________________ (in thousands, except per ton data) natural resource partners l.p. reconciliation of non-gaap measures (unaudited) (in thousands) (in thousands) june 30, 2018 september 30, 2018 december 31, 2018 march 31, 2019 last 12 months _________________________ leverage ratio is calculated as last twelve months' adjusted ebitda divided by the outstanding principal of nrp's debt as of march 31, 2019. leverage ratio less one-time hillsboro litigation settlement is calculated as last twelve months' adjusted ebitda less one-time hillsboro litigation settlement divided by the outstanding principal of nrp's debt as of march 31, 2019. (in thousands) less: proceeds from sale of discontinued operations (in thousands) june 30,2018 september 30,2018 december 31,2018 march 31,2019 last 12 months less: proceeds from sale of discontinued operations less: preferred unit distributions coal royalty corporate (in thousands) and other and financing less: total current liabilities of continuing operations excluding current debt less: total long-term liabilities of continuing operations excluding long-term debt _________________________
