Matador Resources Company (MTDR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

June 12, 2025

New York Stock Exchange US Energy Oil, Gas and Consumable Fuels shareholder_meeting 95 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#1

These guys, they don't leave me. Let me go up here and add [ hocket ]. They give me a script. So I'll try to stay on script. But I want to thank all of you for being here and really what a thrill it is for us and hopefully, all of you to think that we have some of the original 17 investors that are here today. And Barry and all the original and Bruce, you do it, too, stand -- please stand and let them say these are some of our 40-year shareholders. Paul Harvey, you're in that group, stand up and let them see you too. And anybody else that was in that original group because we didn't have any production and they were investing in a guy that was in a little windowless office and he had a baby on the way. And so no risk just do it. So we started with that $270,000. And today, we believe we have over $11 billion in assets. So that's a lot of good people pushing on the rock. And I want to thank all of you for staying with us and being a part. I even see a guy that I taught accounting when I was at SMU here today. And so when you ask your former students to come invest, I go, hey, I taught you accounting. I've already passed it. I don't need to do anything else. But I'm Joe Foran, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, that this has been -- what's different about Matador is when we hire, we try to find people who want to build a company as opposed to just a job. And this has been an endeavor we didn't come up through private equity, but through friends and family. So we want to be available to you. And if you have questions, please call us or write a note or grab us after the meeting. But I haven't gotten a count yet. Mac, do you have a count at all the people that are here today? All right. I don't know. I estimate it looks like more than 250. So I'm going to be real careful what I say today. And before we get to the items, one of our -- part of our staff has -- would like to share a video with you made about the origins of Matador. Then I wish to show you some slides about the progress that we are making. So Mac, are you ready? [Presentation]

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#2

That was done by Rick Alexander who is Head of our Measurement Group and really does a fantastic job. Rick, where are you? Stand up and take your bat, way back there. And he wasn't asked. He actually did that as a volunteer, and he came in my office and he said he had this video he wanted me to show at the annual meeting. And I didn't know whether that was going to be about his kids on vacation or what it may include or he's also proud of his basketball shot. So I didn't know whether -- and he placed the guitar in a group. So I didn't know whether he was going to be playing music or shooting a basket or -- so great job, Rick. Thank you very much. Now we will now proceed with the formal portion of the meeting. I will act as Chairman of the meeting, and I have asked Bryan Erman. Bryan, please? There you are, our Corporate Secretary, to serve as Secretary of the meeting. And to begin, I would like to introduce the members of the Board of Directors of the company in attendance today. And again, talk about our directors. I think we have a great group who are very giving of their time and expertise and the way they work together to thrash through the problems and make sure pressure test the decisions and the plans, and it makes such a difference to have a group that cooperates and works with people and if you get a chance, I hope you'll get to meet them because they're just -- they're regular people trying to do a good job for the whole group. I'll begin with Tim Parker, our Lead Independent Director. He was the former Head of the Energy Practice at T. Rowe Price, and he's knowledgeable in all aspects of the business. And this is unusual, somehow our business got a little bifurcated. You have people who know the financial side and you have the people that know the operation. And there are just a few people that know both. And Tim is one of those, and he's helped get all the directors in exchange where they are all now at least conversational on both sides of the business. And I think that set a tone that has served us well. And -- so Tim is good. I'm saying in other words, he's good at finance, he's good at operations, and he's good at director work. The next director is Gaines Baty. And Gaines, we met coaching our boys in baseball. And what makes Gaines so helpful is he's a C-suite recruiter and has really helped raise our hiring standards and how to identify talent and potential. He has discerning wisdom as well as assessing great skill at assessing an individual's potential integrity and character. Thank you, Gaines. And he was a pretty good little league baseball coach. The next is Shelley Appel. Shelley is Nancy's and my fourth-born child, and she is a graduate of Yale with a degree in Cognitive Science with her concentration in decision-making as well. And I got to say when your child is studying in decision-making, you're going to be questioned from time to time. So -- and then after working for the CFO of the New York Stock Exchange, she attended University of Chicago with a degree in finance and then worked for Shell in their M&A group. The next director is Rey Baribault, who is the leader of our technical groups and studies. He's a reservoir engineer from LSU. He worked at Exxon, then Netherland and Sewell and then started a successful oil and gas company in the Bakken. So he's well acquainted with these unconventional resources and is widely recognized as one of the best engineers in the business. Then we have Bill Byerley, and Bill Byerley has become one of our key members. He was the Head of the oil and gas practice at PwC. He led the audit team when PwC, was hired to audit Conoco and Exxon, a man of good wisdom that asked some of the best questions of anyone and make sure there's 2 areas when I started the company, I wanted to be sure that we were careful on. One was the head of the Engineering Committee that estimated the reserves we had each year, and you didn't want anything to happen there where you were -- they went off and wrote off these reserves and you had a big loss. And so those have always had a lot of integrity. And the second area is in the audit that you didn't want any write-downs on assets. And again, point over here to the PwC, what a fantastic job they've done through the years of making sure that the reports and financial statements we send to you, you can trust. Then another director that I had not known for a long time, but has certainly made large contributions is Monika Ehrman with the interesting background of having been a petroleum engineer, a Vice President at Pioneer, and she is now the leader of the oil and gas program at SMU School of Law. So again, somebody as they all are, very knowledgeable in both finance. And then Paul Harvey, who has been a shareholder for 42 years and seen us all through the growth from where we had no assets to where we are today and a close friend and adviser to me and different ways, and he helps us along with Paul Flowers with our messaging and financial efforts. The next is Ken Stewart. Ken actually helped incorporate this Matador and where Paul has been a shareholder for 42 years, Ken has been a long-time shareholder, but only 35 years and helped incorporate us, and he was formerly the Global Chair of the international arm of Norton Rose Fulbright and Managing Partner of the U.S. region and the Partner-in-Charge of the Dallas office. His practice focused on merger, acquisition, financing and joint venture activities for both public and private companies. So you can see where he has plenty of expertise to share with us. And finally, Susan Ward, who is a chemical engineer from Villanova, MBA in finance from Wharton, 20 years at Shell, including 12 years as a senior executive, Head of M&A, Commercial Finance for all Shell's business in America. And she was the CFO when Shell took their pipeline company public. So these are all well-qualified people but work extremely well together. And I say thank you to all you directors and ask all to join me and give them a round of applause. Now I want to thank the shareholders who served on the Shareholder Advisory Committee for Board nominations with Ken Stewart, who chaired that committee and Tim Parker. These are those shareholders, David Lancaster, who is formerly CFO and EVP of Matador and a genius reservoir engineer and a good friend and emphasis on good friends and Bob Garrett, who is a leading real estate professional in Amarillo and one of the best negotiators and long-time shareholder that I've known. Julie Forrester Rogers, former Director and a long-time professor of law at SMU. And when she took the bar exam, she made the highest grade of anyone in the state. And then finally, my friend, George Yates, who asked if he could be forgiven for missing this meeting, which is the first he's missed. It's his 50th anniversary. And I don't know why he could come here or go on a trip with his bride of 50 years. Imagine that. And he picked his bride, but he's been a great friend and a dedicated and respected oil and gas operator in New Mexico. So he brings a lot of actual experience drilling and working deals in oil and gas in New Mexico. He's now -- most of his efforts is overseas in Spain and England, and we'll get him here next year. As you probably saw with this morning, in our press release, Matador and San Mateo both made several important promotions this week. I would now like to invite our Co-Presidents, Van Singleton and Bryan Ehrman, to introduce our officers and staff. Van, Bryan?

Bryan Erman

executive
#3

Thank you, Joe. It's an honor for Van and I to get to introduce our officers and staff today. They really are what makes all this happen. The few of us that get to come up here and brag about all the accomplishments. It's a real honor to do that, but these are the people that are doing the work that makes it possible. So we really do want to recognize them, not just the people here in the audience today, but as Joe mentioned earlier, we have people at the office, participating there and in the field. So I really want to recognize them.

Van Singleton

executive
#4

I agree with Bryan. We've got so many important things going on today that would not happen if it weren't for all of the staff and management here in the room, the Board and like Bryan said, everyone at the office as well, who hopefully are still there working really hard on all the important things that need to get done today. But for the ones that are here, we did want to recognize you and have everyone else kind of see your faces and names. And if you have any questions, feel free to go up to any one of them and ask away. If you would, we're just going to kind of go by groups, and we'll call out. I think will -- all of our EVPs, please stand and be recognized.

Bryan Erman

executive
#5

Would all the Senior Vice Presidents stand up as well?

Van Singleton

executive
#6

Now our Vice Presidents, please stand.

Bryan Erman

executive
#7

And would the other staff members that are in attendance, please stand. And I would also note that these people are not just employees, but most of them are also shareholders, which we're really proud of as well.

Van Singleton

executive
#8

Next, we have a couple of people, and this is a really difficult part because so many people on the staff are doing so many good things, very important things. But we can't recognize everyone we don't have enough time. We'd be here for the rest of the week. We do have a couple of people we'd like to recognize for just recent news. And so one in particular, which you all may have seen in the announcement this morning, but Bill Lambert, if you could stand, please. And anyone who hasn't met Bill, we've just brought Bill on recently, and we're making a few transitions, as you saw in the release, and Bill is going to be our CFO going forward. Met Bill a number of years ago and got to know each other really well and decided he was somebody that if we could ever get him, we wanted him on the team. And in the last 6 months, that opportunity came up, and we took advantage of it, and we're really glad to have Bill with us. He has a great resume, if you have a chance to look at it, engineer, MBA, was in the finance end, in the banking end and then BD, business development at Devon most recently, and we're really glad to bring him on to our team. Bryan, do you want to add to that?

Bryan Erman

executive
#9

Yes. Just to pile on, I mean known Bill for a while and from his Devon days and really excited that he's -- we got him to join the team. And I think as Van said, the diverse background that he has from operations to banking to working at a company, I think, has a really, really great perspective, and we're excited to work with him. We also want to recognize Jon Filbert, our EVP of Land. Jon Yes. Like I said, Jon leads our land department. I know number of you have heard of our Ameredev and advanced deals. Jon was a huge part of that, not only getting the deals done, but then integrating 2 really big transactions, which is a huge feat. The other thing that doesn't get as much attention, but is just as important is our -- what we call our ground game for smaller acquisitions. And so in 2024 alone, we added over 17,000 acres to that. And so -- and that's exclusive of the Ameredev deal. So that's a lot of work for a lot of smaller transactions, and Jon is the tip of the spear on that, and we really appreciate all he does.

Van Singleton

executive
#10

Jon, don't sit down quite yet. I'm going to add on a little bit there just that Jon has been with us over a decade. It's been really interesting and fulfilling and rewarding to watch Jon grow as the company has grown. And as Bryan said, really taking the lead in the land department and getting all these deals done, plus a lot of other things. And I just want to say, Jon, we're really proud of you. We're so glad you're part of the team, and we've got lots more to come and have big expectations for you. So keep it up. We'd like to recognize 2 other folks, Justin Hosp and Sean O'Grady. If you guys could stand for us real quick. Recent news, these gentlemen have been leading the charge to get our midstream Marlan plant expansion done, and they have gotten that completed. It is online. Everything is working well, and they did it on time and within budget. So we're really proud of these guys. And that's a consistent answer that we get it from them. Whenever we ask them to do something, they get it done on time and under budget. So thank you guys very much. Bryan, do you want to add to that?

Bryan Erman

executive
#11

No. I mean just really appreciate all the work that you did to do that, both you guys and the whole team. I know there's a lot more people involved in that, and it's a huge feat to get something like that done and to do it on time and on budget is even more special. So congrats to the whole team.

Van Singleton

executive
#12

One final remark, and then we'll get out of you all's way and let things continue. But just wanted to say thank you to everyone here, all of the shareholders. Thank you for attending. It means a lot to us, and we hope that this is meaningful for you. And thank you to the Board for your continued support. And Joe, you all keep us going. And I think our efforts in recruiting and constantly trying to keep that quality high has led to the results that we see today. And so we just thank you for letting us do what we do and helping us along the way. Now I'd like to introduce Shelley Appel, who is going to introduce a few of the guests attending our meeting this morning. Thank you.

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#13

Before Shelley introduces, I just want to give you an idea on the magnitude of the growth of our Midstream system. We did this when we were going public back in 2012, everywhere we went, we were asked, how are we getting our gas out of the basin. We weren't having any trouble at that time, but knew because we were getting the question from everybody on the non-deal -- on the deal roadshow that others were having it. And so when we discussed that, it was suggested to go back and get Gregg Krug. Gregg, will you please stand? He's been our mastermind. He has a career he grew up in the gas camp as a mastermind of that part of the business. And it's so critical to have that flow assurance that we see more and more every day. And I want to thank Gregg for coming back with us and master mining it, and we have grown that. Our original plant was 60 million a day of processing, which sounded a lot to me. Today, our capacity is 720 million cubic feet a day. All done, I wouldn't have undertaken that risk unless Gregg was around. So we keep an ankle bracelet on, monitor his movements at all times. So thank you, Gregg.

Shelley Appel

executive
#14

Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here today and recognize some of our special guests in attendance. Would each of you please stand as I introduce you? And would everyone please hold your applause until the end. First, Kim Kesler, Chris Stakem and Derek Burns from KPMG and members of their team. KPMG is the company's registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2025. Mr. Stakem will be available to respond to any questions you may have for KPMG. Also in attendance is Preston Bernhisel and Rusty Shellhorn of Baker Botts LLP and members of their team. And Jason Schumacher of O'Melveny and members of his team. And additionally, we'd like to recognize the representatives in attendance from members of our bank group, including David Dodd from PNC; Garrett Merrell from Comerica Bank; Jay Salitza from KeyBanc, Bryan Chapman from First Horizon Bank; and Tim Perry from RBC. And finally, we'd like to welcome some of the research analysts who cover Matador, Scott Hanold of RBC Capital Markets; Zach Parham of JPMorgan; and Noah Hungness of Bank of America Securities, Inc. So all of these individuals have contributed to Matador's success over the last year, and would you please join me in a round of applause to thank them. Okay. And I would like to now invite Monika Ehrman to thank and recognize retiring Director, Bill Howard; and our newest Director, Paul Harvey, who joined this year.

Monika Ehrman

executive
#15

Thank you, Shelley. On behalf of the Board and the entire company, I want to extend our deepest gratitude to Bill Howard for his dedicated service since joining the Board in 2021. As Co-Chair of the Marketing and Midstream Committee, Bill brought a wealth of industry knowledge and strategy that was beneficial to Matador. His decades of experience in petroleum marketing and trading, which included leadership roles at Texon and Tripetrol, where he served as the NYMEX Crude Oil Advisory Committee as well as long tenure as a trustee of Complex Private Trust made him an invaluable voice in shaping our approach to Midstream and marketing operations. It was a pleasure to serve with him and a privilege on behalf of the entire Board. We are so grateful for his service. We are also delighted to welcome Paul Harvey to our Board of Directors. Paul joined the Board in January 2025 as an Independent Director. He brings over 40 years of investment experience as both a Portfolio Manager and a Private Wealth Adviser with deep expertise in asset allocation, risk management and portfolio construction. Paul is a private wealth adviser, was former Chief Investment Officer of Vaquero Private Wealth. And before joining, he was a Managing Director of BlackRock. He was also previously served as Regional Director and Portfolio Manager with Merrill Lynch's Asset Management Group. Paul's leadership roles at these companies reflect a career that's defined by excellence and strategic foresight. Paul holds an MBA with a finance concentration from SMU Cox School of Business, and a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin. He's also a CFA and earned the Certified Private Wealth Adviser. We are so excited to welcome you, Paul, to the Board and are confident that your insight and guidance will be tremendous assets to Matador. Thank you. I'd like to turn it back to Joe.

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#16

Thank you. And to share with you some of that progress in a more effective way than me trying to talk about it. We have a series of slides I'd like to share with you. And if you're ready back there, Mac, okay, we'll go. First, it's 40 years of generating shareholder value from Matador 1 to present. And when people ask us, what is the way you get there from $270,000 to over $11 billion in assets. It's just a lot of people pushing on the rock and just staying with it. So it's a people -- our business is a people game. It's a decision-making game, and it's -- and it just takes a lot of people to get it done. And I just appreciate my wife, Nancy, and I appreciate you all so much being involved all these years, and it's truly a team effort. So there you go. So what is -- the building blocks is trying to generate cash flow margins, and we're right now ranked first in our peer group for making more money per barrel of oil produced than anyone else, trying to keep a strong balance sheet. And again, the banks have really helped us there. The quality drilling, we have a geological group headed by Andrew Parker that does a magnificent job coming up with better and better prospects in what is truly the core of the Delaware Basin, not on the fringes, but in the core. And over again, they've identified new targets. We went out there with the idea of having 2 or 3. And I think we're up to -- Andrew, what is it? 17 zones?

Andrew Parker

executive
#17

We drilled over [indiscernible].

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#18

Okay. I'm sorry, I could only count the 17. You have to have a little higher math experience to get that 20, but great job. And then in getting that, it's so much of a really good land work. And I credit Van Singleton, who was up here earlier, he doesn't call a lot of attention, but he gets the groups together and they go out there and get the deal. So will the land group please stand. And Van, these are called Van's boys and girls, and they really get it done. I mean it's -- they're out there on the road. They're writing offers every week. They're out there on the road, traveling different places, building the relationships, and it shows. So thank you, Van. The midstream business, as we recognize Gregg Krug for his ideas that worked out so well for us. And we have flow assurance and our plants are running 99% of the time. Third parties are not that high. When it freezes out there, they shut the wells in and come back after they -- after that's over. But our guys get out there and sleep in their cars and whatever. And so again, I attribute that a lot to the fact with the employee share purchase plan we have, our participation rate in the past has been about 95%, which is almost unheard of among companies. Well, this year, it's grown to over 97%. And so that little extra effort, we believe, pays off, steadily increasing dividend. We're up to -- we started with $0.10, and we're up to $1.25. And as commodity prices go forward, we'll consider raising it again. We're not on a deal just once a year, but we look at the cash flow, and we look at the situation and the Board will consider that. The share repurchase program, we believe, has been real successful, and you'll get more details on that. And the last thing is these accretive acquisitions. So we are buying what we call the brick by brick, but we're also doing $2 billion deals, and we've done 2 in the past 2 years, the Advance and the Ameredev. And that -- look, it put us in a new league and very excited, and they've turned out better than expected and the integration of it with our own operations has gone much smoother than we anticipated. That's a picture of the plant. And you can see it's complex. It's a $200 million job. But again, it assures you, and as I keep saying, if you're going to be a cotton farmer in Dawson County, Texas, you better own part of the cotton gen if you want to get your product to market. And it's the same deal here. If you're going to be a major gas producer in the Delaware, you need to have your interest in the plants, and it's created a lot of other opportunities for us, too, that we'll talk about years to come. That's the capacity moving from 60 million in 2016 to 720 million today. That's the profit margin that I referred to. And down there, they list the companies. We don't want to criticize our competition. Their names are there, but we don't identify them as which peer they are. The important fact is we're doing better than they are and plan to keep doing that. So this is the stock purchased by the staff by the senior staff. Those officers been 38, 55,000 shares, $.6 million. And -- all right. Let me worth this and over 95% participation in the employee share purchase plan. Somewhere -- and we are the only senior management group among our peers that has been buying. We've been buyers, everybody -- all the other peers have -- when you calculate their aggregate transactions, they're more sellers than buyers, but we're more buyers than sellers. This is our land position that given Van and his group, Jon, we started out over there, just scattered when we went public in 2012. But today, over 200,000 acres out there, and we're 1 of the 5 largest in New Mexico from having -- starting from a standing start, great effort by the land group. I've got a heavy thumb. And why do we consider this the most prolific basin in the United States and others? And what you see is this column, there's targets, oil-bearing zones up and down here, 5,000 feet where -- and here's the Midland and here are the other basins that you hear about out there, the Niobrara, the Eagle Ford, the Bakken and the like. And this is why this is going to be the gift that keeps giving and why we feel strong about the quality of our assets. We have a corny expression in the office of profitable growth at a measured pace. And we don't -- we want to grow, but we don't want to take just huge amounts of risk. So we try to stay steady, make sure it's profitable and then keep it going. Our Board members, you've seen them. And I hope you get to know all of them and have a chance to visit. It's a distinguished Shareholder Advisory Committee, recognition of our senior staff as I went through it. And again, KPMG has been a great partner. And I think Derek has been here for every audit since you all started. He's even got a parking space here. And new directors, you heard Monika go through that. These are our slides, annual meeting, and we have -- we'll get to these proposals at this time. Bryan? Well, I think that's pretty good. Let's give it to the whole staff.

Bryan Erman

executive
#19

Thank you, Joe. This meeting is being held today pursuant to the notice that we mailed to each shareholder of record as of April 16, 2025, which is the record date of this meeting. I have made available a complete list of shareholders of the company entitled to vote at the meeting, alphabetically arranged and certified as of the close of business on the record date. Further, I have provided a notice, proxy statement and proxy and an affidavit that such proxy, proxy statement and notice, together with the 2024 Annual Report of the company were mailed to the shareholders of record on the record date. These documents will be filed with the minutes of this meeting. Cale Curtin, Senior Counsel and Corporate Director, has been appointed to act as Inspector of Elections at this meeting. As Inspector of Elections, Cale will ascertain the number of shares of common stock outstanding and the voting power of each, determine the shares of common stock represented at the meeting and the validity of the proxies and ballots, count all the ballots and votes and certify and declare his determination of the number of shares of common stock represented at this meeting and the count of all votes and ballots. All holders of record of common stock at the close of business on the record date are entitled to vote at this meeting, either in person or by proxy. Cale, could you please present the attendance report?

Cale Curtin

executive
#20

Thanks, Bryan. As Inspector of Elections, I report that there are present at this meeting in person or by proxy, the holders of approximately 116 million shares of common stock of the company out of a total of 125,201,846 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote as of the record date. Thus, the holders of approximately 93% of the aggregate outstanding shares of common stock entitled to vote are present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting. Each share of common stock outstanding on the record date is entitled to 1 vote.

Bryan Erman

executive
#21

On the basis of the report of the Inspector of Elections, I declare that a quorum is present at the meeting for the purposes of conducting business and the meeting is legally convened and ready to transact business. A certified report of the Inspector of Elections will be attached as an exhibit to the minutes of this meeting. As stated in the notice of this meeting, 3 matters will be considered and acted upon this morning. To expedite the actions taken, all matters of business as reflected in the notice will be presented first, and then a ballot will be taken afterwards for voting on each matter. The 3 orders of business for consideration at today's meeting are as follows: number one, the election of 4 directors to our Board; number two, the approval of a nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2024 compensation program for our named executive officers, also known as say-on-pay; and three, the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent public accounting firm for the year ended December 31, 2025. Speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors, we recommend that you vote for the election of the director nominees and for the additional 2 proposals being considered today. I would now like to ask Ken Stewart, the Chair of our Nominating Committee of the Board to introduce the director nominees for the meeting.

Kenneth Stewart

executive
#22

Thank you, Bryan. As I think all of you know, our directors serve staggered 3-year terms and are divided into Class I, Class II and Class III. The reason for the staggered terms is to give the directors a long enough time to get to know the key members of the staff, get to know each other, go on field trips, get to know the business of the company in detail and be able to provide the common advice and counsel that the company needs from its Board. The class to be elected this year is Class II and the nominees to be considered for the shareholders -- this shareholders' meeting, as you have heard, are Shelley Appel, Gaines Baty, Paul Harvey and Susan Ward. And all of the nominees are current directors who are being recommended for an additional term. Shelley became a director in 2003, but prior to that time was well known to the Board. Shelley served as a Special Adviser to the Board in 2002 and has served as the company's Environmental and Social Governance Coordinator since January of 2001, and she is the primary author of the company's annual sustainability report, which I know many of you have seen. Gaines Baty. Gaines was appointed to the Board in 2016. As noted before, he serves as the Deputy Independent Director -- Lead Independent Director and is Chair of the Strategic Planning and Compensation Committee. Gaines has extensive experience in executive searches and hiring and has been invaluable to the company over the years with his advice in these areas. Paul Harvey, Paul became Board member, as you heard in January of this year. He is our newest member appointed by the Board. And in accordance with the company's procedures is standing for election by the shareholders at this first annual meeting after his appointment. While Paul is new to his Board position, as you've heard, he's well known to the Board and the shareholders, having been a shareholder of Matador for over 4 decades. So Paul has deep expertise, as you've heard, in wealth management and is providing great assistance to the company in connection with Investor Relations and investor outreach. And then Susan was appointed to the Board in early 2024 after a distinguished career that you heard about with Shell Oil Company, and she served in many executive positions, but most recently, including Head of Mergers and Acquisitions and Commercial Finance and Chief Financial Officer for Shell Midstream Partners. So she has provided excellent insights to us in all of those areas and in particularly the Midstream area, I've learned a lot from her with respect to that part of the business. So -- we -- the Board was recommended a vote for all of these nominees. And I will now turn it over to Gaines Baty to talk about the next proposal.

Robert Baty

executive
#23

Thank you, Ken. Good morning. The second order of business is the nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2024 compensation program of our named executive officers, also known as say-on-pay as set forth in the proxy statement. Our compensation program is designed to reward in both short and long-term performance that contributes to the implementation of our business strategies, maintenance of our culture and values and the achievement of our objectives. In addition, we reward qualities that we believe help achieve our business strategies. More information regarding the compensation of our named executive officers is included in the proxy statement. The Board of Directors has recommended that you vote for the nonbinding resolution approving the 2024 compensation of our named executive officers. Now I'd like to ask Bill Byerley as Chair of our Audit Committee, to discuss the final order of business of today's meeting. Thank you.

William Byerley

executive
#24

Thank you, Gaines. Final proposal for us today is the ratification of the appointment of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm. KPMG served as Matador's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2024, and has served as the company's auditors since 2014. The Audit Committee of the Board of Directors has appointed KPMG as Matador's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2025. In turn, the Board of Directors has directed that such appointment be submitted to our shareholders for ratification at this meeting. Further information about the services provided by KPMG is set forth in the proxy statement. The Board of Directors recommends that you vote for the ratification of KPMG as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2025. I will now turn the meeting back to Joe Foran, our Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer.

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#25

Thank you, Bill. And on behalf of everyone on the Board and on the Matador staff, we thank you, directors, for the rigor and expertise that you bring to the Audit Committee and especially you, Bill. And for Ken and Gaines, we greatly appreciate all your hard work and expertise in your Board and committee assignments as well as taking the time to get to know the individual Matador staffers. And I think our Board is very unusual in that is they know who's working there. There's a real relationship. And that makes the exchange of information that much easier. To review, there are 3 pending orders of business. The first is election of 4 directors. The second is the nonbinding advisory vote to approve the 2024 compensation program of our named executive officers. The third one is the ratification of the appointment of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2025. We will now distribute ballots to any shareholders present who wish to vote in person. To avoid confusion in counting the votes, ballots should be cast at this time only if you have not previously given a proxy, if you have not revoked a proxy previously given by you or if you are now revoking a proxy previously given by you. If your stock is held in a brokerage account in order to vote at this time, you must first provide us with a legal proxy that would have been given to you by your broker, granting you the right to vote that stock in person. Now under these circumstances, you now desire a ballot, please raise your hand, and we will provide you with one. So if that's not enough bureaucracy, seeing no one raise their hand, we will leave the ballots as they are, Cale. If you'll report on the outcome.

Cale Curtin

executive
#26

Yes, sir. So I'm pleased to report that each of our nominees for director has been elected to the Board as each nominee has received greater than 85% of the votes cast by the shareholders present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting and entitled to vote on the election of directors. This constitutes a majority. The second motion regarding the nonbinding resolution approving the compensation of our named executive officers has received a favorable vote of more than 94%, which constitutes a majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy and entitled to vote at this meeting on this matter. And finally, the third motion ratifying the selection of KPMG LLP as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2025, has received a favorable vote of over 99%, which constitutes a majority of the shares present in person or represented by proxy at this meeting and entitled to vote on this matter. Therefore, each of the director nominees and the proposals voted upon today, as described in the proxy statement, has consistent with the recommendations of our Board of Directors, been approved by the shareholders and will be recorded as such in the minutes of this meeting. I would like to remind our shareholders and other stakeholders that specific information regarding the number of votes cast for and against each of the proposals will be included in the current report on Form 8-K that will be filed early next week.

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#27

Thank you, Cale. And Cale, I want you to know your group got more votes than any of the other. I think you all were at 99%, okay. We're going to investigate that one per se. There -- before we conclude, I would like to recognize my wife and Co-Founder, Nancy, would you please stand? In getting it started, what was really nice was she did not ask me too many questions of where the next paycheck was coming from. So thank you, Nancy, and thank you for all your help in all the different areas of the company, and we appreciate you being here, too. Thank you. She had 5 children, too. So there -- this completes the scheduled items of business. There being no further business, the formal portion of the bank is now adjourned. And I would like to introduce our Lead Independent Director, Tim Parker. Tim was appointed to the Board in 2018, serves as Lead Independent Director and as Chair of the Board's Capital Markets and Finance Committee. Tim?

Timothy Parker

executive
#28

Thank you, Joe. What I'm going to talk about is pretty much what Joe talked about, and that's that this is a company that does what it says it's going to do and focus on things like profitable growth at a measured pace. You don't have inventory like this if you can't drill it and develop returns. And by that, I mean, we have higher returns on capital than most companies public or private. And that's because these are good oily wells drilled for reasonable costs and produced for reasonable costs. We heard yesterday how we brought the cost down at the acquired Ameredev properties, which have more H2S and dangerous things we have to remove from the oil before we sell it, and we've taken $3 out of that cost. So it's almost the same cost as the rest of the portfolio. Did that in a few months. That's the kind of business you have here. We also have this very durable inventory that Van is and team are always out brick-by-brick, little deal, little deal with the occasional big deal that every year, we're trying to replace what we've drilled and add new locations that will compete for capital. And I feel very confident saying we have 10 to 15 years of drilling inventory, engineered locations today. So there's durability to these high returns. I don't think many companies can say that either. There won't be many companies in the next 5 and 10 years that will look ahead and say, we have 10 years of inventory, it's oily and it's high return, and we have all of that. This is also a company that has a pretty straightforward balance sheet. We have a reserves-based facility that we -- it's a working capital and occasionally for deals and such, and we've been paying that down. We have 3 publicly traded bonds. They all trade around par in the 6s. So good commercial paper. The first one is not due until 2028. So we've got some time, and we should be able to refinance it if we like. We've just been raised to BB at Fitch, one of the ratings agencies, which is one step away from investment grade. So the company is becoming a stronger financial company than ever before, thanks to these high-return wells and Midstream business. We're also using the free cash flow, which is something new for us. We're now big enough that we have free cash flow, we have for the last few years, to pay a fixed dividend that we will continue to raise, as Joe mentioned, to acquire companies at times, to pay down debt and more recently, to buy in some of our stock when it's cheap, when it's low priced, when commodity prices are low. We're not looking to buy stock every day. We're looking to buy it when it's on sale. And so you'll see an update to that, I think, in our 10-Q, our next quarterly report, you'll see how much we bought, but stay tuned for that. And finally, we're -- we, the Board and management, we're all aligned with you, all the shareholders out here. We own stock. We care about this company. We want you to succeed. We know you're tremendously capable people. We want to be a resource for you, guidance for you, but know that we are paddling the boat right along with you. And that's something that we're very proud that all of these directors serve on this public board. We don't serve on 5 boards. We care about this company. All of our directors own stock, some more than others, but it's -- if you ever looked, it's a lot of stock. Yes, sure, Jon is more than us to be founded. But we all care. We put our money where our mouth is. This is our horse in the race. So we are strong believers. We're in the race with you. We want to know we are here to help. So with that, thank you.

Reynald Baribault

executive
#29

Thanks, Tim. Well said. I appreciate it. Thank you for attending today and to those listening in on the webcast. On behalf of all the directors here, we appreciate your investment in Matador, your interest in learning more about the company and meeting with us and with staff here today. I was reminded looking at the calendar at today's meeting that 2025 is almost half over. And also 40 years ago, this coming Sunday, Father's Day, I walked into Exxon's production engineering production office in New Orleans and started my amazing engineering journey in this resilient business. So back then, million-barrel wells were only expected in offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico. And now today, there are common targets in the Delaware Basin. And back then, who would have thought? So we'll hear shortly a financial update from Michael Frenzel and Bill Lambert on record production levels, robust free cash flow, top-tier profit margins and the increasing dividend. Underwriting these results, as Tim just mentioned, are the prolific wells that operations continue to turn in line and deliver to the bottom line week in and week out. And I'd be remiss not to mention the importance of the contributions of the land and legal teams who provide and prepare drilling permits for the rig schedule and the geo professionals that identify and help high-grade the formation targets in each well. Without their diligence and perseverance, the drilling operations, production facilities teams would be working from an empty playbook. And I'd like to unpack a few examples of work here that's being done at Matador that's increasing efficiencies and driving returns on Matador's capital investments. These illustrate Matador's mantra, look ahead around the corner for new ways to enhance operations and reduce costs. Mac on this first slide, now in its eighth year -- thank you. Now in its eighth year in the Dallas office, the MAXCOM operations center continues to generate many millions in well savings annually, while helping the drilling crews consistently post new performance records in the field. The engineers and geologists on the MAXCOM team work in concert on 12-hour shifts, 7 days on, 7 days off and in constant communication in real time with the rig supervisors and the drilling engineers at each rig. They aid in landing laterals in the targeted zones. consistently monitor horizontal steering and provide drilling optimization guidance. Their collective brain trust provides the best practices, which makes for better wells. Matador's wells average 99% of their lateral length within a reservoir target. Drilling windows typically for targets have a 20- to 25-foot vertical tolerance roughly from the floor to the ceiling you see here over a 2-, 3-mile lateral length, which is impressive. And in some targets, the window is as tight as 10 feet. Recent records, recent drilling records that the teams have posted, the longest lateral length in the company history is 3 miles at the Charles Ling unit. And the total measured depth from surface to TD, total depth, is 28,000 feet, well over 5 miles. The most lateral footage drilled in a 24-hour time span is a 600,000-foot length over -- well over a mile in the first Bone Spring target and a record of 8 days and 7 hours to drill from initial spud to total depth for a 2-mile lateral well also in the Bone Spring, pretty impressive. The MAXCOM center contributions will continue to grow as will the center itself with a new larger footprint in the Dallas office and IT upgrades scheduled in the second half of this year. The MAXCOM team lives and breathes, as I said, looking ahead around the corner. Before moving to the next slide, I'd like to make mention of the near seamless integration of the Ameredev assets that the company acquired this past September. The teams across all disciplines in the field continue to move the ball forward. Tim made mention of one of those opportunities on oil, sour oil treating. They continue to move the ball forward and are taking full advantage of the many upside opportunities. Development drilling on the Ameredev asset base will ramp up in earnest shortly. There's currently 1 rig running and several rigs will move into the asset area in the coming months. One of those drilling units is a 3.5-mile unit with multi-wells planned there, 3 rigs, 3 pads. Moving on to the next slide. With this slide, I'd like to update you on the U-Turn drilling concept that I made mention of at last year's shareholder meeting. Matador was an early mover with this technique back in 2023. This new tool in the toolbox is being used to develop reserves in what we sometimes refer to as a stranded 640. This slide depicts a top-down plan view for a 1 square mile 640-acre section or spacing unit. So when adjacent square mile sections are not able to be joined together or what we call unitized for whatever reason to form a typical rectangular 2-mile 1,280-acre unit, we're left with a stranded 640. And by today's standards, the economic return on drilling a 1-mile horizontal in a 1-mile unit doesn't compete with longer lateral metrics. On the right-hand portion, you see here, we're depicting how Matador is developing 1-mile 640-acre sections in the company inventory across all its asset areas. To date, Matador has drilled 17 U-turn 2-mile lateral wells, 2 in 2023 that I mentioned last year, 5 in 2024, 10 so far year-to-date with another 8 additional wells planned for the second half of this year. The production performance importantly, as executing mechanically on a U-turn well, the production performance results of the 2023 and 2024 U-turn wells are tracking with the same barrel per foot recovery efficiencies that are analogous to their neighboring straight 2-mile lateral wells. Going forward, the U-turn wells are likely to comprise roughly 10% to 15% of Matador's gross annual well count. So in a literal sense here, this is an example of the drilling team looking ahead around the corner. The next slide, what I'd like to show here is what demonstrates the continuing successful application of the company's latest trimul-frac operation. In this instance, at the Emmett/Prater 1,280-acre spacing unit in the Rustler Breaks area. The opportunity here that Matador had was to complete stimulation operations on 12 newly drilled 2-mile lateral wells comprised of 2 separate 6-well pads. And those 12 wells developed the First Bone, Second Bone and Third Bone Springs targets. So what the teams did was develop 4 wells per horizon, fully developing the spacing unit in each of the 3 formations. So what essentially you're seeing here is what would be analogous to a very refined manufacturing process. The operation pictured in this slide shows NexTier's hybrid frac spread on the 6-well Prater pad. A hybrid frac fleet is now standard operating procedure for simul-frac and trimul-frac operations. hybrid fleet referring to the use of both electric-driven pumps as well as dual fuel pumps. Dual fuel pumps can run on either diesel or field natural gas. For this operation at the Prater pad and then successively at the Emmett pad, which was just north of this pad in the unit, Matador leveraged San Mateo's Midstream infrastructure to use both recycled produced water for frac supply load as well as field natural gas from the nearby Black River gas plant to run the dual fuel pumps. The 12-well development of the Bone Spring zones in this unit reduced cost by $1 million per well and resulted in 20% less days per well when compared to last year's Matador average for drilling Bone Spring wells in this asset area. So this now is standard operating procedure going forward for multi-well pad development on simul-frac and trimul-frac operations, say that 3 times, with repeated -- with highly repeatable metrics. And Matador's superior asset base in the Delaware Basin, both downhole and above ground with a distinct mix of production and midstream facilities, combined with its talented professionals and tireless field operations staff are consistently delivering high returns and growing shareowner value. First and foremost, geology matters. And the 3 eyes I refer to ingenuity, innovation and infrastructure are front and center at Matador. Speaking of midstream operations and marketing, I'll pass the podium on to Susan. But I'd like to finish by asking you to recall the tagline from the old Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams. If you build it, he will come. For the midstream and marketing teams, their call to arms is drill it and we will come. Thank you for your attention and interest in Matador and your support.

Susan Ward

executive
#30

Thanks, Rey. Good morning, everyone. Joe asked me to talk to you today about my observations as a relatively new director with prior midstream experience on the progress and outlook for Matador's growing midstream business, and I'm delighted to do that. While Matador's E&P operation has been in business for over 40 years, the midstream business was only established in 2015. Midstream conducts 3 streams of operations, natural gas, produced water and oil, supporting Matador's exploration, development and production activities. Midstream provides natural gas gathering and processing with nearly 300 miles of pipeline and 720 million cubic feet per day of gas processing capacity, produced water gathering and disposal services with 180 miles of pipeline and 16 water disposal wells having 475,000 barrels a day of capacity and oil gathering and transportation, including 110 miles of pipeline and 3 central delivery points with 90,000 barrels a day of capacity. One positive of the 2015 start is that most of Matador's midstream gathering and processing base is young equipment from a useful life standpoint. The result is a more efficient and reliable midstream operation for Matador and its partners as well as for third-party producers also keen to evacuate production in a timely way. Producers cannot flare natural gas associated with oil production in this area. And if offtake arrangements are not in place and functioning when production is ready to come on stream, the cash flow associated with the new production is delayed. Thus as Joe mentioned, flow assurance and the reliability of midstream operations are critical. In the last 18 months, Matador's Midstream team achieved an availability reliability of over 99%, almost perfect and I think significantly above competition. Most of the company's midstream operations are conducted through its majority-owned San Mateo joint venture with the private equity group, Five Point Energy. The assets are primarily located near Matador's E&P operations in the prolific Delaware Basin of the Permian in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas. The messages I'd like to communicate to you today are that Matador's Midstream is growing, it's material, it's profitable, and it represents significant current value to Matador and to you with the potential to add much more. Over the last 10 years, Matador has grown the value of the midstream assets from nearly 0 to $1.5 billion as midstream throughput, EBITDA and free cash flow have grown to record levels. Matador has found innovative ways to grow the segment while providing free cash flow back to the parent to redeploy to profitable E&P development opportunities or to repay debt for E&P acquisitions, pay dividends or acquire -- make share repurchases at good prices. Much of Matador's midstream cash flow is generated under 15-year fixed fee contracts for essentially all of Matador's acreage. These midstream cash flows are generally considered more predictable and less risky than E&P cash flows, which are subject to commodity price fluctuations. These more predictable midstream cash flows are highly sought after by lenders, and other potential investors and are sold in both the public and private M&A market at high relative valuations. There are many advantages to Matador owning and operating an embedded integrated midstream business. First, flow assurance for equity production, including sour gas; second, significant positive free cash flow to the parent to redeploy to continue to grow the company's E&P base; third, good opportunities to generate incremental profitable volumes and free cash flow from blue chip and repeat third parties; and finally, it gives Matador the potential opportunity to develop and use a new currency. Among several private and public strategic alternatives, Matador and its San Mateo JV partner are exploring the option and benefits to establish a publicly traded midstream entity. Historically, midstream companies have traded in the stock market at high relative valuations. For example, currently, gas gathering and processing companies are trading at 8 to 12x forward EBITDA compared to independent E&P companies at 3 to 5x EBITDA. So you can understand the arbitrage there. From its beginning, the company has made smart choices to grow its midstream business. For example, over the last year, relatively short new pipelines have been constructed to connect the system of gathering pipelines and processing plants that now resembles a loop with the potential for volumes to be moved in other different directions to fill spare capacity and meet individual customer needs in the most profitable way for Matador. The company has also been active on both sides of M&A, taking advantage of circumstances to opportunistically buy and then sell later at high values. For example, the nonoperated equity interest in Piñon Midstream that Matador obtained through the Ameredev acquisition last year was subsequently sold to enterprise for $115 million. That stake was not highly valued in Matador's bid for Ameredev. The sale proceeds were used to repay debt taken on in the E&P acquisition. In another recent example, 100% of the relatively new Pronto, now Marlan plant was bought in 2022 and in a distressed situation from a competitor for less than $80 million. So not that long ago. At the end of last year, just 49% of that was sold to Matador's San Mateo partner at a much higher value, $220 million cash plus other commercial arrangements, including future incentive payments. The terms of that transaction also included a sour gas solution for Matador and simplified its midstream holdings. Those proceeds were also used by Matador to repay E&P acquisition debt. And just last month, the company, as you've heard, placed in service a 200 million cubic feet per day capital expansion of the Marlan plant that took over a year to plan and execute on time and on budget, a fantastic achievement. This expansion of an existing plant increased the Matador's overall processing inlet capacity by nearly 40%. The quality and location of the assets are important, but where Matador also differentiates itself from its peers is in the employees' knowledge and commitment to teamwork, continuous improvement and customer service. Matador's unique culture of safe, low-cost and reliable delivery stands out to me. Importantly, Matador has a very experienced and professional midstream team, as you've heard already, including Gregg Krug, Brian Willey, Rob Macalik, Michael Frenzel, Sean O'Grady and of course, on the other side, Justin Hosp, Tara Flume and Chris Tennant. Todd Parker and Scott Walker work on the MBD with Brooks Forshaw and others to work seamlessly with the upstream business leaders. What's impressed me is how well this team and the field staff supporting the business and other functions like finance, marketing with Anton Langland and Measurement with Ricky Alexander quickly communicate and work so well to identify and pursue time-sensitive profitable opportunities. These can only be captured if the team really understands the operations capabilities and the potential integration value of the assets and work selflessly to make it happen. The track record and bright outlook show they do. Thank you.

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#31

Thank you very much, Susan. And a couple of people I hadn't mentioned, Billy Goodwin is here, and Billy is one that really raised our drilling from 1 rig or half a rig to where we were drilling 9 rigs or more and having the highest quality rigs out there. He and Josh for sure. And so thank you very much, Billy. It's good to have you. And Paul Flowers, who's worked with Paul Harvey on our messaging. Paul, where are you? There. Thank you, Paul. I just couldn't see you over there right away. But he's also a part of the handball group that -- and been a great friend, one of the first friend that I made when I got to Dallas. I'd also like at this time to recognize Michael Frenzel. Michael is our Executive Vice President and Treasurer. He interned at Matador beginning in year 2000. So he's accumulated 25 years here. and he really did start when he was 16, I think. But prior to joining Matador, he worked as an investment associate at Hamm Capital in Oklahoma City and as a financial analyst and assistant to the CEO at Continental Resources. So Michael make sure that we have our money on time and on budget, right? And then I'd like to recognize Brian Willey. Brian Willey has led our banking and finance effort and our midstream legal work as well as other work benefiting Matador. And we now leads our efforts in planning how to best grow and increase the value of our midstream business, San Mateo. So he did exceptional work, particularly as an example, with the 19 members of our bank group led by David Dodd at PNC. David, I want to raise your hand, too. There you are. And any time you get 19 banks to agree on any 19 questions, we think that's great work. So thank you, Brian. Now I'd like to turn to the newest member of our executive team, Bill Lambert, who's been -- who started work with us and got off such a good start. The Board decided to go ahead at this meeting and name and affirm him as Executive Vice President, Deputy Chief -- not Deputy any longer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief of Strategy. Prior to joining Matador, he was Vice President of Business Development at Devon Energy in Oklahoma City. And prior to that, he was a Managing Director in the Energy Investment Group at Goldman Sachs, and he worked for Schlumberger, began his career at Schlumberger as a wireline field engineer and worked on rigs offshore Vietnam. So Bill, I where are you? There you are. We would like to see if you'd like to say some few words on your appointment as our Chief Financial Officer.

William D. Lambert

executive
#32

Thank you, Joe. I appreciate the opportunity to join the team. So I have a couple of slides quickly that I'd like to go through along with Michael. But what I really want to start off with is when we look at this business, I've been an observer of Matador from the outside for a long time, for over 10 years. And as I think about it, I've always been able to look at the audited financial statements and think about how has this business in the last couple of years been driving superior free cash flow margins. And as I think about that, it really starts with the team. And the group of people that I've had the opportunity to join are world-class. It's been a great blessing for me to get to know them over the last 4 or 5 years and spend time with them and recognize that when the opportunity came, it was a very, very easy decision. The next thing is the rock and the integrated nature of the business. When you think about it, when you can take a tremendous group of people and give them the best rock in North America and the midstream to make sure that you can move the hydrocarbon to the market, you develop a winning strategy. When we look at the historical growth in this business, we'll look momentarily at the land position and the Midstream business that Joe and his team have built with the support of the Board and everyone in this room. And as we think about it, this growth has been at a measured pace, as Tim noted, but is something where we've maintained the balance sheet to make sure that we are able to deliver that growth over time in all markets. The ability to know when to take advantage of volatility is a real strength of this team. So as I move forward and lay out the growth itself, I just want to remind everyone, this is a slide that I've seen, and I know you all have seen in the investor deck for a while. But just look at the left-hand side and how little red, how little land is actually on that page. When Joe started off, it was a small footprint. And it was something that we looked at from the outside and we said, wow, they've got a little bit of a footprint. And then you look at what the team, what Van and his land team, what the collective Matador team has built and you look at the amount of red in the best basin in North America, combined with the infrastructure business that has been built along the way, this is a really, really powerful position. And when we pair that with the inventory regeneration that Tim spoke of earlier, where we think about we have 10 to 15 years of actual sticks on a map. That is a really, really unique thing. It's something that I've looked at lots and lots of basins and lots and lots of development strategies. And the reality is that is unique. When you look at the individual wells and their performance, this slide shows well performance over time. And in my opinion, oil is where we all make money. And at the end of the day, the oil EURs here. So this is the total amount of oil that a well is likely to produce over the life of that well. When you look at that, Matador's wells produce more oil than others. That is really, really important when you think about that free cash flow and free cash flow margin that we talked about. And the final piece, and I'll hand this over to Michael, and I just want to recognize Brian Willey and Michael's work around the way that they have positioned this balance sheet, they set me up for tremendous opportunities for success, and I'm incredibly grateful for that because the team collectively took the preventative steps at the beginning of all the volatility that took place earlier this year to make sure that we are well positioned for whatever happens. And so with that, I'll hand it over to Michael and let him talk a little bit more.

Michael Frenzel

executive
#33

Thank you very much, Bill. I'll be very brief in my remarks because I think Tim and Shelley both addressed what I was going to say, but we got a recent upgrade from Fitch ratings from BB- to BB, nearly to investment grade. They didn't have to make this upgrade, especially in light of the volatility that we've seen in early April. So we really appreciate their consideration in making the upgrade, and we really look forward to looking to working with them going forward. And I want to reiterate one more time the support that we've gotten from our bank group over many, many years. Obviously, PNC is the lead now, but RBC and Comerica and First Horizon have been in our group for a long period of time. And that support that we've received has been pivotal to the growth that Matador has seen over these many years. San Mateo as well. We wouldn't be in the position that we are without the support of our banks, just like we wouldn't be in the position that we are without the support of our shareholders. But Joe mentioned that my first internship was 25 years ago. And in the last 25 years, we have not been better positioned to capitalize on opportunities as we are now. We've got $1.8 billion of liquidity, a leverage ratio below 1x, a great asset base in the most prolific basin in the country, and we've got a staff that is unrivaled in the business, in my opinion.

William D. Lambert

executive
#34

We'll hand it back to Joe now for some closing remarks. Thank you again for joining us.

Joseph Wm. Foran

executive
#35

You all can breathe easy. I don't have any closing remarks. Our staff will be available to you if you have any questions. And of course, call us any time or come see us. We are always available. You all are the owners of the business. We wouldn't be here without so many of you pitching in as you have and backing us and providing the stability during turbulent times, and we're very appreciative. And we're kind of old-fashioned. We're kind of the last of the companies that didn't come up through private equity, but did it with friends and family and kind of door-to-door. So it does mean us a lot. We are available. And I'm just really overwhelmed with appreciation to see so many of you taking time out to come see us. Nancy, not bad for starting out that windless office. And 2 points of real pride to me. You've met some of the connections. But also, we have 2 of our VPs whose grandfathers let me have that windless office. So I like Sam Pryor and Chris Carlton, would you please -- Chris Carlton? There you are. So their grandfathers are the ones that let me have that office. And they're still can't get rid of me. They're still here and they're working, and we're all working together. We've got many stories like that. You've heard the stories about Amarillo and the people from Amarillo we've hired. And also on the -- I played rugby at Kentucky and with the rugby players from Kentucky stand if they're in here today, there's Jen, there's Derek. I know we got one more and we got another one coming. And so I thank you all for coming. And so if you have -- and -- but keeping the quality of the people up is an ongoing goal for us. And just appreciate you all coming. You all get to have the exchange with our people at Matador getting to meet our shareholders, and I think they're the best in the business. So thank you, shareholders and other interested parties, and we're going to go out and find some more oil today. Thank you. And the last thing I want to say, it's nice to see we have reached production of approximately 200,000 a day. Is that right? That Glenn make sure that we get all 200,000 right. And think how fabulous that is only in America, could you start in that windless office, 270,000 and end up today pushing 200,000 on the way to 250,000 or 300,000. So -- we'll get after them, and thank you all again. I hope you'll come back next year. Meeting adjourned.

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