When I posted my most recent update of my Dividend Income portfolio https://jubakpicks.com/2012/07/03/if-you-want-to-earn-more-dividend-income-youll-have-to-put-up-with-more-volatility-what-you-want-to-avoid-is-a-permanent-impairment-of-capital/ on July 3, I promised that I’d make the required changes to the online portfolio https://jubakpicks.com/jubak-dividend-income-portfolio/ within a couple of days.
Time sure flies when you’re having fun.
Here it is early September and I’m just updating the portfolio now. My bad.
For those of you without perfect recall (or who have better things to stuff their brains with than changes in my portfolios) on July 3 I dropped Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR) from that portfolio https://jubakpicks.com/2012/09/05/catching-up-on-booking-on-my-july-3-sell-of-penn-virginia-resource-partners/ ).
And I added shares of Western Gas Partners (WES) with that July 3 post at $43.42.
My logic was pretty simple: Master Limited Partnerships like Western Gas Partners grow by raising money in the public markets (since they distribute most of their profits to unit holders) and then using that cash to buy new assets that throw off profits that can be added to distributions. What you like is to invest in a Master Limited Partnership that is able to raise cheap cash (thank you Ben Bernanke) and that has a steady supply of profitable assets to buy.
Raise cash. Buy. Repeat.
Works as long as the cash remains cheap and as long as the partnership doesn’t run out of assets to buy.
The Federal Reserve has promised to take care of the first part of the formula by keeping rates low through 2014.
The new supply of new assets looks robust thanks to a continued stream of midstream pipelines and other assets available for purchase from Anadarko Petroleum (APC), which spun off Western Gas Partners in 2008. Credit Suisse projects a continued annual flow of approximately $500 million in dropdown acquisitions from Anadarko to Western Gas Partners. That should be enough, Credit Suisse estimates, to grow distributions to unit holders by 16% to 20% in 2012 and by 12.2% annually for the next five years.
Full disclosure: I don’t own shares of any of the companies mentioned in this post in my personal portfolio. The mutual fund I manage, Jubak Global Equity Fund http://jubakfund.com/ , may or may not now own positions in any stock mentioned in this post. The fund did own shares of Western Gas Partners as of the end of March. For a full list of the stocks in the fund as of the end of March see the fund’s portfolio at http://jubakfund.com/about-the-fund/holdings/
