Hi-Crush Partners (HCLP) Raises Quarterly Dividend 12.5% to $0.225; 7.6% Yield

Hi-Crush Partners (NYSE: HCLP) declared a quarterly dividend of $0.225 per share, or $0.9 annualized. This is a 12.5% increase from the prior dividend of $0.20.

The dividend will be payable on May 15, 2018, to stockholders of record on May 1, 2018, with an ex-dividend date of April 30, 2018.

The annual yield on the dividend is 7.6 percent.

"Our business continues to benefit from a steady strengthening of demand for frac sand," said Laura C. Fulton, Chief Financial Officer of Hi-Crush. "The strong underlying market fundamentals we experienced in the first quarter, and our outlook for further growth, provided the backdrop for our management team and the Board of Directors to increase our quarterly distribution to $0.225 per unit, up from $0.20 per unit in the prior quarter. These results were achieved despite the widely broadcasted challenges from reduced rail service experienced throughout the industry in the first quarter of 2018. We are delivering on our objective of delivering sustainable and meaningful growth in our distribution, and continue to expect increases of approximately 10% per quarter for the foreseeable future, subject to market conditions and periodic review. We will maintain a capital strategy that remains responsive to the market throughout 2018, and the balance between additional distribution growth and ongoing unit repurchases will reflect this flexibility."

For the first quarter of 2018, Hi-Crush completed repurchases of an additional 753,090 common units, representing $9.4 million. In addition to the 2,030,163 common units repurchased during the fourth quarter of 2017, repurchases total $29.4 million. Hi-Crush remains committed to executing on the remaining approximately $70 million of repurchases under its $100 million authorized program. The repurchase program does not obligate the Partnership to repurchase any specific dollar amount or number of units, and may be suspended, modified or discontinued by the Board of Directors at any time, in its sole discretion and without notice.

Hi-Crush also announced that performance conditions had been met for the payment of contingent consideration, or earnout, related to the Blair acquisition previously completed in 2016 and the Whitehall acquisition completed in 2017. During the first quarter of 2018, the Partnership paid $5 million and $20 million of contingent consideration related to the Blair and Whitehall acquisitions, respectively, in cash to our sponsor.

"We are pleased to continue delivering on our promises through further growth in our distribution, as well as additional opportunistic purchases on our unit buyback program," said Robert E. Rasmus, Chief Executive Officer of Hi-Crush. "The level of capital return completed during the first quarter, combined with the performance-based earnout payments, is reflective of our cash flow generation, in addition to our commitment to deliver value to unitholders over the near- and long-term. We remain laser-focused on executing our Mine. Move. Manage. strategy to enable continued growth in our business and unitholder returns."

For a dividend history and other dividend-related data on Hi-Crush Partners (HCLP) click here.

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