Energy

WildHorse Resource Gears Up for IPO

Chris Lange

Published: November 23, 2016 8:25 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 5:29 pm

WildHorse Resource Development has registered an amended S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its initial public offering (IPO). No pricing details were listed in this filing, but in the last filing the offering was valued up to $650 million. Also the sheer number of underwriters for this offering implies a huge value. The company intends to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WRD.

The company listed its underwriters for the offering as: Barclays, Merrill Lynch, BMO Capital Markets, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Guggenheim, JPMorgan, Raymond James, Simmons, Tudor Pickering Holt, Simons & Co., Capital One, Comerica Securities, Scotia Howard Well and Wunderlich.

This is a growth-oriented, independent oil and natural gas company focused on the acquisition, exploitation, development and production of oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids resources. Its assets are characterized by concentrated acreage positions in Southeast Texas and North Louisiana with multiple producing stratigraphic horizons, or stacked pay zones, and attractive single-well rates of return. In Southeast Texas, it operates in Burleson, Lee and Washington Counties, where it primarily targets the Eagle Ford Shale, which is one of the most active shale trends in North America. In North Louisiana, this company operates in and around the highly prolific Terryville Complex, where it primarily targets the overpressured Cotton Valley play.

WildHorse was formed by management and technical teams and affiliates of Natural Gas Partners, a family of energy-focused private equity investment funds. Prior to formation, the founding members of the management and technical teams successfully built and sold multiple NGP-sponsored oil and natural gas assets in and around the location of its acreage.

The company detailed in its filing:

Since we commenced operations in 2013, our management and technical teams have successfully executed our development program, growing our acreage position to approximately 375,000 net acres. We have also grown our production from 4.5 MBoe/d for the three months ended March 31, 2014 to approximately 14.0 MBoe/d for the three months ended September 30, 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate (“CAGR”) of approximately 57%, as described below, and our production for the three months ended September 30, 2016 was 17.9 MBoe/d after giving pro forma effect to the Acquisitions.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to fund the remaining portion of the Burleson North Acquisition purchase price, repay in full and terminate the WildHorse revolving credit facility and the Esquisto revolving credit facility and repay in full all notes payable by Esquisto to its members, and fund a portion of its drilling program. The remainder will be put toward working capital and general corporate purposes.