Are MLPs Going Away?

MLP investors have certainly seen their conviction tested of late. Poor stock performance was recently compounded by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) ruling on cost of service contracts earlier this month. Although MLPs don’t pay tax, interstate natural gas pipeline tariffs based on cost-of-service have historically included an allowance for taxes paid by their investors. Following a court challenge by United Airlines, FERC has now disallowed this practice.

Since last year’s tax reform, MLPs have already included lower imputed tax expense in their guidance. After the FERC ruling, most firms reaffirmed prior guidance, since the immediate impact of the change is quite narrow. However, the loss of the tax allowance will impact gradually over the next few years. Along with the drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%, it further reduces the relative advantage of MLPs compared with corporate ownership of energy infrastructure assets.

The trend favoring corporate ownership is well established. As we’ve written before, MLP investors (generally, older wealthy Americans) want their distributions and don’t much care for the distribution cuts that have been necessary to finance growth projects (see Will MLP Distribution Cuts Pay Off?). These investors are income-seeking, not total return oriented. It’s why MLP yields remain stubbornly high, and is behind the many “simplification” transactions that move assets to corporate ownership and cut payouts.

FERC’s ruling probably helps that ongoing trend towards corporations (see FERC Ruling Pushes Pipelines Out of MLPs). MLPs are complex, with a limited investor base, and are losing some of their comparative advantage over corporations because of changes to the tax code. They already represent less than half of energy infrastructure. The tax ruling by FERC doesn’t affect corporate owners, since their tax expense is real, not imputed as was the case with MLPs.