Big news, that was a long time coming, from Texas Pacific Land Corp. (TPL). After the August 1st close, TPL announced a “Board Refreshment”. Specifically, the two co-Chairs, David Barry and John Norris, will retire from the board at the 2023 Annual Meeting. Furthermore, TPL announced that it has entered into a Cooperation Agreement with board members, and large shareholders, Murray Stahl and Eric Oliver. I’d like to go through the agreement and provide my thoughts on it. I’d like to preface it with the following sentiments. First, the governance and management of TPL has been beyond atrocious. Change cannot come quickly enough in the minds of many shareholders. Second, this agreement, no matter how imperfect, shows the tides are shifting and change is coming. Third, I believe that Horizon Kinetics and Softvest (HK/SV or HK and SV) want to move forward with fixing the governance and management and is less concerned about extracting vengeance and winning every single point.
Thanks for the summary.