By Avi Salzman

The newly public Presidio Production Company won't wow investors by finding the next big oil-gusher. But it might catch their attention with its dividend.

The Fort Worth, Texas, company, whose stock started trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange, expects to have a 12.9% dividend yield, among the highest in the equity market.

The stock went public through the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, process with an enterprise value around $700 million. While the stock had been rising in advance of the debut, it fell 5% Thursday.

Presidio stock trades around $10.50, with a $1.35 annual dividend. The company expects to hike the dividend to $1.50 after closing a recently announced $80 million transaction to buy new wells.

Presidio differs from most small-cap energy companies, which tend to have a wildcatter mentality -- drill somewhere new and try to hit the big one. Instead, Presidio steps in once the well has been producing for a while.

"We don't take any drilling risk," co-CEO Will Ulrich said. "We are a business that generates cash flow from oil and gas properties. We operate the assets more efficiently than the people we're buying them from."

Presidio operates in the Texas Panhandle and Western Oklahoma. It produces a little over 20,000 barrels of oil and equivalents a day, less than 1% of the production of majors like Exxon Mobil.

Presidio grows by buying new assets, and increasing the cash flows from those assets. Its results still depend on global oil and gas markets -- revenue and income fell through the first nine months of 2025 compared with the 2024 period as oil prices dropped. But the company hedges much of its price risk in financial markets and puts less capital at risk than other producers who are looking for new drilling opportunities.

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com

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March 05, 2026 15:17 ET (20:17 GMT)

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