EXE

Expand Energy is the scaled US natural-gas pure-play created by the Southwestern merger, and FY2025 is the first full year of that combination: revenue jumped +186% to $12.1B and net income swung to +$1.82B (EPS $7.57) from a -$714M loss in FY2024. The MD&A is explicit that the gain is overwhelmingly a function of (1) the merger adding volume — total production rose from 3,758 to 7,183 MMcfe/day — and (2) higher prices, with realized gas climbing from $2.03 to $3.08/Mcf. Both are external, non-repeatable tailwinds rather than organic operating leverage, so the headline growth rates flatter the underlying business.

The quality case is the balance sheet and cash generation. Liabilities/equity is just 0.52x, long-term debt fell to $5.01B with zero current maturities, and the 10-K reports $4.1B of liquidity ($616M cash + $3.5B undrawn, no revolver borrowings). Operating cash flow of $4.58B covered $2.74B of capex with ~$1.84B left for the growing $765M dividend (base $0.575/quarter declared Feb 2026) and $100M of buybacks. For a commodity producer, this is a conservatively financed, free-cash-flow-positive operation — exactly what you want going into the next price downturn.