| Account | Shares | Price | Value | % of acct | Cost/sh | Gain $ | Gain % | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 401K | 179 | $86.09 | $15,410 | 0.63% | $55.87 | $5,410 | +54.1% | — |
In short: Owns it in the Aurelion model portfolio ("just as a disclosure"): a Permian land owner that rents drilling and water rights, with Texas data-center deals (Amazon, Meta expected) on top, ~30 staff and 97–99% gross margins. Bought at ~20–25× P/E against a ~35× history while TPL trades ~50× — "a lot more room to it."
LandBridge owns a large block of land in the Permian Basin in West Texas, the biggest US oil field. It doesn't drill for oil itself. It charges the companies that do: for the right to drill, for access, and above all for handling the water that comes out of the ground with the oil. It is now also leasing land for Texas data centers. With about 30 employees, almost every dollar of revenue is profit (Boyer puts gross margins at 97–99%). That is why he can be bearish on the oil price and still own it: the landlord gets paid as long as the field is busy.
The case is about valuation. Royalty-style landlords always look expensive on a price-to-earnings basis because they carry so little risk. So Boyer compares LandBridge with its own history and with its peer, not with oil producers. Aurelion bought at roughly 20–25 times earnings, against a usual level near 35 times, while Texas Pacific Land trades around 50 times. The risk he names is ownership: a few big long-term holders control much of the stock, and nobody knows what they will do with it.
33:55So we have a position in it just as a disclosure and it's a company that everyone thinks that they do only oil but actually they just rent the right to drill and use the oil, it's actually the water, and that is in the field. So they would, and right now there would be a lot of data centers in Texas and you expect them to sign a contract with Amazon and then it's a Meta and everything and it adds to their earnings that are really really good and they are like 30 people that work there.
In short: Paired with TPL as the "LandBridge model" of land optionality he is borrowing for the permanent portfolio's forestry sleeve — "if you own a large tract of land… there's all of these optionality… things that we can't forecast or see currently."
26:53And what I like about land is especially if you look at like the TPL model or the LandBridge model is optionality. If you own a large tract of land, for example, if I own a bunch of land, I'm a big forestry land holder and there are several publicly traded companies that can put you in this. They realize this also and you can look at, I can cut down a portion of a forest and if it's near a freeway or near a development I can say okay I get the
In short: The second-derivative answer to the data-centre backlash — "I like companies like LandBridge here in the US and TPL. Why?… what do you need for a data center? Because you're getting all the political push back. You need water, you need land where nobody's around that you're going to bother… and you need gas because you're going to have gas turbines first before you go to nuclear. And so where are you at? They're out there and both of them are already working on massive deals with companies to site data centers… they have aquifers that they have the water rights to." The gas leg is free by construction: "there's so much associated gas being produced that they have to sell it. They have to pay people to take it away because you can't flare it anymore. And so this is the perfect storm." One West Texas county, he notes, "has 300 people living it. No one's going to complain."
LandBridge owns land — ranch acreage in West Texas — and the rights that come with it, especially water. It does not drill; it charges other people for using its surface, its water and its infrastructure.
The reason that matters now is that AI data centres have become politically radioactive. They consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, and voters in Texas and Pennsylvania have noticed their power bills. Some jurisdictions have blocked them outright, and the President has said new ones should bring their own power rather than draw from the grid. So the scarce thing is no longer computing hardware; it is a place you are allowed to build.
LandBridge happens to own exactly that combination: empty land in counties with a few hundred residents, legal rights to underground water plus an existing business recycling the water oil wells produce, and access to natural gas that is so abundant locally that producers sometimes pay to have it taken away. Being a landlord rather than an operator means it collects fees whether or not any individual data centre is a good business. The risk is concentration — one region, one boom, and a valuation that already assumes a lot of the deals get signed.
1:16:14[gasps] I like companies like LandBridge here in the US and TPL. Why? Murray Stahl is my hero. He's the guy that ran Horizon Kinetics. He died recently, six years. He's probably the smartest man I've ever listened to or read. He was a genius. His ability to understand these things — and how he found TPL and was like the best holding.
In short: Owned indirectly — "Comments on Landbridge, a company that I own via my holdings in FRMO Corp" — and named as the template for what he is building next: "This is an example of the type of company I am looking to add to my new 'Permanent Portfolio'… a portfolio of scarce, non-replaceable assets. Management like Landbridge's that knows what it owns and how to maximize the optionality of its assets is an example of what I am seeking. More to come on this." The economics he reprints from Horizon Kinetics' Q2 2026 commentary: 300,000+ Delaware Basin surface acres, a royalty-like water fee on volumes piped or stored in pore space, 10-year contracts with CPI escalators implying "12% or greater revenue growth, which requires no capital spending," re-pricing above ~$0.11/bbl as pore-space demand rises, aquifer source water at ~$1/bbl, and the "powered land" concept for private power generation, transmission and large-scale data centers.
LandBridge does not drill for oil. It owns the surface — more than 300,000 contiguous acres above the Delaware Basin in west Texas — and charges other companies for the right to do things on it and beneath it. Today most of that money comes from water: fracking produces enormous volumes of dirty water that has to be moved, cleaned and disposed of, and LandBridge gets paid a small fee on every barrel piped across its land or injected into the empty rock ("pore space") underneath it. It is structured like a royalty — a cut of somebody else's activity — rather than like an operating business it has to fund and run.
Two features make Horizon Kinetics (whose write-up Polomny reprints) call it a rare asset. First, the water contracts run about ten years and contain inflation escalators tied to indices like CPI, so the fee rises automatically with inflation. That alone implies roughly 12% or better revenue growth "which requires no capital spending" — the company does not have to build anything to collect more. Second, as demand for disposal capacity grows, new contracts should be signed above today's roughly 11 cents a barrel. Growth from contract language and scarcity, not from reinvestment.
The bigger idea is "powered land," which LandBridge coined: because the acreage is contiguous, empty and privately controlled, it can host private power plants, transmission lines, wind and solar, carbon capture — and ultimately the data centers that need all of it. Each of those tenants pays a recurring, high-margin fee to sit on the land. And because the acreage sits above a large aquifer, LandBridge can also sell fresh source water (around $1 a barrel) to drillers, again taking a royalty-style cut. Polomny's interest is not a valuation call — he quotes no price and gives no target. He owns it indirectly through FRMO, and he holds it up as the template for the "Permanent Portfolio" of scarce, non-replaceable assets he says he is now building, singling out management that "knows what it owns and how to maximize the optionality of its assets." The honest caveat is that everything above is Horizon Kinetics' analysis, and the water-fee revenue still depends on Permian drilling activity continuing.
In short: The July 2024 IPO Horizon Kinetics anchored — over 300,000 Delaware Basin surface acres earning royalty-like fees on water piped across or stored beneath them. Passive growth is built in: brackish water rises from 4 barrels per barrel of oil today toward 6-to-1 by 2030 (~9% annualized volume growth) and 10-year contracts carry CPI escalators, so "12% or greater revenue growth" needs no capital spending. First mover on "powered land" for private generation, transmission and data centers; its aquifer lets it sell source water at ~$1/barrel vs the current ~$0.11 handling fee.
LandBridge owns over 300,000 acres of surface land in the Delaware Basin of West Texas and rents it out. Its main tenant business today is water: oil wells there produce enormous volumes of salty water alongside the oil, and that water has to be piped somewhere and injected somewhere. LandBridge charges a fee per barrel that crosses or is stored under its land — economically a royalty, since it doesn't own or operate the pipes.
The appeal is that the growth arrives without LandBridge doing anything. The geology guarantees it: as wells age and deepen, more water comes up per barrel of oil — four barrels today, an estimated six by 2030, which alone is about 9% more volume a year. Its ten-year contracts also have inflation escalators built in, so Horizon Kinetics can already pencil in 12%-plus revenue growth with zero capital spending. On top of that sits the option: LandBridge coined the term "powered land," meaning contiguous acreage where a data center, its power plant, its transmission lines and its cooling water can all sit — each one another recurring fee. It also sits above an aquifer, so it can sell fresh source water at roughly $1 a barrel versus the ~11 cents it earns handling produced water.
Horizon Kinetics anchored the July 2024 IPO — an exception to its general dislike of IPOs precisely because the substance, not the label, is what it judges.
Full passage: premium transcript (PDF).
In short: Cited (with TPL) as the model of a land owner that "knows how to exploit the optionality" of a huge land position — the template the smaller, just-waking-up land companies could follow.
LandBridge owns large tracts of land and earns money from whatever happens on it — pipelines, water handling, power and data-center hosting. Polomny holds it up (with Texas Pacific Land) as the company that already "knows how to exploit the optionality" of a big land position: it doesn't have to sell anything, it just collects on the many uses of land it bought cheaply. It's the template the smaller, just-waking-up land companies could grow into.
53:36Like the particular one we're talking about, you got the activists in there and they're actually like you always talk about in these companies, they have optionality. Well, you see that expressed with like LandBridge and TPL. They kind of know how to exploit the optionality of there's huge land. Now these other companies I think the bulbs turned on.
In short: Same West-Texas land/water/power theme as TPL — "why I like LandBridge and things like that": stranded gas + water, nobody nearby to oppose data centers.
Same idea as TPL: LandBridge owns West-Texas acreage with stranded gas and water and uses/royalties on top of it. As the power-and-water crunch and local backlash push data centers out to unpopulated land, the company that owns that land collects the fees. Polomny groups it with TPL as the "own the land where the buildout is unopposed" play.
51:06But this is something I predicted would happen. There's not enough not enough electrons. Not enough water. And so this is another reason why I like TPL and why I like LandBridge and things like that because you can dump these things in West Texas in the middle of nowhere where there's plenty of water, there's plenty of natural gas, it's stranded, there's plenty of nobody's going to complain because nobody lives out there.
In short: Third pro pick, highest conviction (Horizon Kinetics owns ~20%). A triple-net Permian land lease (72k-acre Hanging H Ranch) — WaterBridge funds the growth; ~25%/yr growth, ~90% EBITDA margin, ~70% FCF conversion, with an asymmetric AI-data-center-water right tail.
LandBridge owns 72,000 acres of West Texas (Permian) land and simply rents it out. It's a "triple-net lease," meaning the tenants pay all the costs and LandBridge just collects rent — closer to a royalty than an operating business, with ~90% of revenue dropping to profit.
Oil-and-water companies pay to run pipelines and dispose of saltwater on its land, and that income is growing ~25% a year. The real prize (the "right tail") is that giant AI data centers now being built in West Texas need exactly what LandBridge sits on — land for buildings, transmission and fiber, plus water for cooling. Davolos's firm owns ~20% of it, his highest-conviction name: a solid lease business today with a big optional payoff if the data-center build-out lands on its acreage.
1:08:30Now, I think that business in and of itself is extremely interesting. Probably going to grow about 25% a year for the next two to three years at a 90% EBITDA margin, and then they're converting about 70% of that into free cash flow. So, incredible oligopoly business with a sponsor and a midstream business funding all of your OPEX and CAPEX.
In short: Named alongside Texas Pacific Land as the same West-Texas land/water/power play on data centers — the stranded gas and water (and room) the AI buildout needs. "I think you're going to see movement towards that also."
LandBridge is the same idea as Texas Pacific Land — a West-Texas land company sitting on the water, gas and open space that data centers need. Polomny groups the two together as the way to play the AI buildout indirectly: collect the "rent" on the land the boom requires instead of betting on any single tech tenant.
17:08We're seeing something also like this up in Amarillo, Texas at the Fermi site. Huge site. This is one of the takes that I think is bullish for companies like Texas Pacific Land and LandBridge. I've mentioned this before. They have the water, the natural gas, and the base out in West Texas. I think you're going to see movement towards that also.
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