SMLP - Summit Midstream Partners: M&A Talk Jumping The Gun With Preferred Distributions Suspended

• The unit price of Summit Midstream Partners remains suppressed with both their common and preferred distributions completely suspended.
• Thankfully, they saw a solid start to 2021 despite their guidance for the full year indicating a high single-digit decrease versus 2020.
• The bigger issue is repairing their financial health through refinancing and deleveraging, which made it very out of place to see talk of them undertaking acquisitions.
• Each investor is entitled to their own view, and I feel that this is jumping the gun and alike to someone with crippling credit card debt talking about buying a new car.
• Since this calls into question their long-term investment appeal with their very high leverage possibly set to remain, I believe that only a neutral rating is appropriate despite their otherwise solid financial results.

For further details see: