Master Limited Partnerships Generate Safe Income for Seniors and Savers

It's time to answer the "who, what, when, where, and why" of investing in master limited partnerships (MLPs)…

Andrey Dashkov, senior research analyst at Miller’s Money Forever, is the rare person who, when you asked for a hammer comes back with a hammer, nails, staples, and glue. In short, he often comes up with better solutions to tricky problems than I ever thought possible.

Since Andrey and I are on a nonstop mission to unearth the best opportunities for generating safe income, we have looked to MLPs more than once. Many Business Development Companies (BDCs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) also fit the bill. Today, however, we are focusing exclusively on how MLPs can produce a healthy and steady income without exposing your nest egg to unwelcome risks.

The Nuts and Bolts of MLPs

By Andrey Dashkov

An MLP is an entity structured as a limited partnership instead of the traditional C-corporation. This allows the company to avoid corporate-level taxes. The limited partners pay most of the taxes, which means that MLPs are essentially pass-through entities.

In the United States, the net effective rate of corporate income tax is 40%. That means a corporation calculates its profit, pays the appropriate income tax to the government, and then pays dividends from what remains. With an MLP all the profits are passed through to the unit holders.

While a traditional corporation can choose to pay a dividend, an MLP does not have that option. In order to maintain their status, MLPs are required to generate at least 90% of their income from qualifying sources and distribute the major portion of that income. In most cases these sources include activities related to the production, processing, and distribution of energy commodities, including gas, oil, and coal.

The government gives a special treatment to these activities to encourage investment into the United States' energy infrastructure.

Limited partners (LPs) own the company together with a general partner (GP). The GP takes care of the day-to-day operations, typically holds a 2% stake, and can usually receive incentive distribution rights (IDRs). LPs, called unit holders, (which we can become by buying shares of publicly traded MLPs) receive dividend-like cash distributions. LPs, unlike traditional shareholders, do not have voting rights.

There are many advantages to MLPs, including:

• Attractive yields;
• Inflation protection;
• Portfolio diversification;
• Tax advantages; and
• Resilient business model.

Attractive Yields

MLPs pay various yields that average 5-10%. Data for the Alerian Index, which tracks the top 50 MLPs, show that in Q2 2013 MLP yields varied from 3-12%, with an average of 6.5%.Besides the actual yield, MLP investors can count on distribution growth. Dividends per share of Alerian Index constituents grew at a compounded rate of 4.1% over the past five years.

Inflation Protection

Several factors hedge against inflation:

• Inflation-adjusted contracts renewed periodically;
• Distribution growth has historically outpaced the growth in CPI; and
• MLP unit (share) prices are weakly correlated with movements in inflation and interest rates.

Portfolio Diversification

MLPs have a low correlation to other asset classes, including equity, debt, and commodities. However, for a short time they may correlate with any asset class or the market in general.

MLPs are less volatile than the broad market. Currently at 0.5, the average beta of Alerian Index, is quite conservative. This suggests that if the broad market goes down by 10%, we should expect the Alerian Index to drop by 5%. An individual company's volatility may stray from the average, but in general MLPs should be much less volatile than the market as a whole.

Generally, the vast majority of MLPs operate in the energy sector, but usually do not own the underlying commodities; this is part of the reason for the decreased volatility. Their income generally consists of transportation fees. However, some MLPs can be exposed to commodity risk (coal, propane, and oil exploration and production MLPs, among others). Economy-wide consequences of a severe recession may impact the demand for energy commodities and, in turn, the profitability of transportation companies.

Tax Advantages

An MLP investor typically receives a tax shield of 80-90% of one's annual cash distributions, which is a very nice feature. This defers tax payments until the unit (your share) is sold.

The tax payment schedule for an MLP is illustrated below. Assume you bought one unit of an MLP for $20 and sold it after five years for $22, having received $2 annually in years 1-5. Assuming your ordinary income tax is 35%, and the long-term (LT) capital gains are taxed at 15%, you can see the breakdown.

Resilient Business Model

During periods of economic uncertainty, MLPs remain a solid source of income. In 2008-2009, 78% of all energy MLPs either maintained or increased their distributions. In comparison, 85% of real estate investment trusts (REITs) either cut or suspended dividend payments.

Now, a note of caution is in order. Despite the excellent income track record, MLP share prices stumbled as they became more correlated to the general market. However, the investors who held them through the difficult times saw the share price rise again. MLPs returned to January 2008 levels in early 2010; the S&P 500 did not do the same until 2013.

The same plunge could happen again if a severe economic crisis hits. As we said, MLPs may move with a falling market. The fact that more investors are aware of MLPs now than a decade or two ago adds to this risk. As investors have searched for yield, MLPs have become more mainstream; however, they are by no means your average S&P 500 stock.

Also, there are two immediately positive outcomes to the higher investor awareness of MLPs: higher liquidity and access to more capital. In the Money Forever portfolio we look for the best and safest available and then protect our downside with protective stop losses.

Principal Risk Areas

With any investment offering a reward, there is a corresponding risk. Here are the key risks of MLPs.

Risk #1: Economic downturns. If the US economy is hit by a severe economic crisis that drives the demand for energy products down, MLPs will take a blow. Like a trucking business that transports products for which the demand is going down, if less product is shipped through a pipeline owned by an MLP, their revenue may decrease.

This, however, is where some investors may get confused. If a pipeline MLP has a contract with an energy company, the price of the transported product may increase or decrease, but at the same time, the MLP may have a fixed-fee arrangement with the energy company. So, if the volume flowing through the pipeline remains steady, its revenue should not fluctuate.

Risk #2: Access to capital and interest rates. As a general rule, MLPs return 100% of their distributable cash flow (DCF), less a reserve determined by the general partner, to the unit holders. Unlike real estate investment trusts that must give away a certain share of their cash flow every quarter, MLP distributions are governed by individual partnership agreements, so the terms vary.

However, the majority of cash an MLP earns will be distributed, so it's only natural that they turn to issuing debt or equity to finance growth projects. When their interest costs rise MLPs that need capital right away will be at a disadvantage. We prefer companies with enough internally generated capital to finance growth, and no major ongoing projects that require billion-dollar loans and thereby run the risk of being underfunded or funded at an unfavorable interest rate. We also prefer companies with fixed-rate debt to floating rate.

Risk #3: Management and execution. Management should have a track record of successful investment in new assets and cash generation to finance distributions.

We also look for companies that have 5- to 10-year capital plans as part of the write-up, and a history of following those plans. They tend to fare better when it comes to keeping capital costs under control.

Risk #4: Sustainability of cash distributions. The above three risks boil down to whether or not an MLP will be able to churn out cash for its unit holders. The distributions should be sustainable, and should grow year after year. The primary reason for buying an MLP is income. We need to make sure the cash keeps coming in.

A company's track record of cash payments is a good, but not perfect, indicator of how it will perform in the future. Variable-rate distributions tend to, well, vary more significantly than those of traditional MLPs. Distributions in the midstream sector tend to be more predictable; natural gas pipelines and storage generate the most stable cash flows while refining/upstream MLPs do so to a lesser extent. We carefully consider these factors when evaluating our investment options.

The "Taper" Factor