Energy XXI Ltd (NASDAQ:EXXI)‘s shares continued to slump in trading today, down by another 7.36%, adding to the 7.23% dip suffered in Thursday’s trading. The $206.81 million oil and natural gas exploration and production company recently announced the sale of its East Bay field in the Gulf of Mexico to a private buyer for $21 million, which along with the recent dip in oil prices along with its rising rig count and worries of overproduction, has pulled down the stock. So far this year, Energy XXI Ltd (NASDAQ:EXXI)’s stock has cratered by more than 32% while the industry has shown slight gains of 2.45%. Currently the stock is trading just 3.5% above its 52-week low and a ghastly 90.45% below its 52-week high. Nor does the smart money appear to see any light at the end of the dark tunnel Energy XXI is stuck in, as they have been cutting their stakes despite the downward-spiraling shares potentially making the stock more attractive.
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Prefessional money managers have been greatly cutting their exposure to Energy XXI Ltd (NASDAQ:EXXI). Among the funds that we track a total of 19 firms had holdings of about $55.39 million on March 31 compared to 30 funds with $65.28 million in shares at the end of the previous quarter. Mark McGoldrick and Jason Maynard’s Mount Kellett Capital Management and Joe Huber‘s Huber Capital Management are the largest stockholders of Energy XXI Ltd (NASDAQ:EXXI) among those current shareholders, with respective holdings of 5.92 million shares valued at $21.56 million and 3.04 million shares valued at $11.07 million. The firms that liquidated their entire stakes during the quarter included veteran investor Leon Cooperman‘s Omega Advisors and Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies.
In its financial results for the fiscal third quarter, Energy XXI Ltd (NASDAQ:EXXI) reported a net loss per share of $1.08, which fell short of the estimates by $0.05, while revenues of $260.19 million represented a decline of 8.8% on a year-over-year basis and a shortfall of $10.66 million from the expectations, despite record production of 60,000 barrels per day. The company’s total debt-to-equity ratio stood at an astounding level of 504.32 compared to the industry’s average of 58.59. In order to provide itself with more liquidity, Energy XXI Ltd (NASDAQ:EXXI) carried out an issuance of second lien notes with $1.36 billion worth of proceeds. On a positive note the company has been able to further bring down its Lease Operating Expenses (LOE), which now stand at $20.02. LOE-related expenses declined to $108 million at the end of the fiscal third quarter compared to $142 million at the end of the previous quarter. As part of cutting its expenditures, the company planned to limit its expenses to $500 million in the first half of the year and $180 million in the second half. Most of these finances will be focused on low risk development drilling and recompletion-type activities.
While shares have declines by over 40% since the end of the first quarter, given the continued unappealing fundamentals of the company, it’s hard to recommend a buy even at these levels. We recommend investors look elsewhere for better bounce-back candidates in the energy sector.
Disclosure: None
