Abraxas Petroleum Corp (AXAS) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
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Abraxas Petroleum Corp (NASDAQ: AXAS)
Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call
March 14, 2019, 3:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks

  • Questions and Answers

  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fourth Quarter 2018 Abraxas Petroleum Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this call is being recorded.

I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Steve Harris, Chief Financial Officer. Sir, you may begin.

Steven P. Harris -- Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Heather, and welcome everyone to the Abraxas Petroleum's fourth quarter 2018 earnings call. Bob Watson, President and CEO of Abraxas joins me today. In addition, we have our Chief Accounting Officer, Bill Krog; VP of Operations, Kenny Johnson; and VP of Marketing, Steve Wendel available to answer any questions you may have, after Bob's overview.

As a reminder, today's call is being taped and webcast replay will be available immediately after the conclusion of the call.

I would like to remind everyone that any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical fact are considered forward-looking statements and actual results could vary materially from those contained in these statements. Factors that could cause our actual results to vary are described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And we would encourage everyone to review the risk factors contained in these filings and in our press releases.

With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Bob.

Robert L.G. Watson -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Steve, good afternoon. Abraxas is always followed the policy of growing but not at all cost and certainly not just for the sake of growth, but growing is a result of sound financial decisions. Our financial results are in yesterday's press release and I will not belabor them here other than to point out that on a yearly basis we reported a 12 month EBITDA of $0.51 a share. You can do the math that -- I'll do it for you. That equates to an enterprise value to trailing 12 month EBITDA of 4.7 times.

I know earnings are full of accounting mumbo-jumbo, but nevertheless they are what they are. And for the year, we reported earnings per share of $0.35 or $57.8 million, which generates a return to shareholders equity which is my personal goal and I talked about quite a bit with investors. That's what I hope you'll need to maximize, but our return on shareholder's equity last year is going to be approximately 35%. Now our decisions going forward or driven by capital efficiency and our quest to generate free cash flow but still grow.