Kingpin investors raise energy stakes - Dallas Business Journal:

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A bevy of high-profile assetf managers and hedge fund guruz returned to buying mode after takingg financial lumps in the second half of 2008 when the value of energy company shares tanke d along with the price of oil andnatural gas. Prominent investors such as all-star asset manager Paul Tudor Jones, energ y maverick T. Boone Pickene and hedge fund investor George Soros dipper their toes in the energy pool once again and grabbec multiple stakes inHouston companies, according to regulatory statements filed this month. Jones, who overseees Tudor Investment Corp.
, found bargains in 10 Houston-based energyg companies or major players with a significant presence in the and also took a new positiohn in Waste Management still a big favorite ofMicrosoft Corp. founder Bill Gates. Pickens, who has spenrt the past 12 monthxs lobbying for his plan to help the countru kick the importedoil habit, stilo knows a fossil-fuel bargain when he sees one. The Texaw oil maven took new positions in a wide rangew of energy companieswith beaten-dowb stock prices at the end of 2008, a year that the bellwether Philadelphia Oil Service Index dipped nearlty 60 percent. Pickens dabbled in servicee players such asSchlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co.
, natural gas shale producer ChesapeakseEnergy Corp. and high-profile explorationm and production company Anadarko Petroleum Soros took even bigger bites in the gaining new positions in services players NaborszIndustries Ltd. and Weatherford International Inc. — aftedr selling off his Schlumbergerstaker — while adding to his position in . Besides his substantial switch into Soros made another big move in late Apripl involvinga Houston-based company by adding 3 million more sharesw of Plains Exploration and Production Co., boosting his stake to nearlgy 6.5 million shares.
Energy analysts and asset investmen managers who follow these movers and shakers say that after energy stocjk prices kept climbing in 2007 toward lofty highdin mid-2008, it’s been a while since the notion of value investing could be appliede to the sector. “Timing is everything,” says Eddiw Allen, senior partner with Eagle GlobalAdvisors LLC. “There may have been an over-reactiohn in the fall with the sell-off of oil stocks. There’as still a lot of volatility todeal with, but theswe investors did well in anticipating the rise (in oil that we’ve seen so far this from the mid-$30s to $60.
” Allen says that valuse investors are still playing a bit of a waiting game. He notesd that stock prices are down, natural gas has not followedf oil’s recovery in 2009, and there are concernsz that prices could stay depressed asinventories build. Thers is also more speculation, he about possible consolidationas mid-cap exploratiom and production companies eye the pickings amongv smaller competitors. Dan Pickering, co-president and head of researchat Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities Inc., says Soros and Tudor might have even adderd more shares during the quarter if energu stocks had not rallied and movefd a bit higherthan expected.
“The marke t took off so strongly in the first quartee that investors took a pausde waiting for a pullback thatnevet came. They might have wanted more but the stocks got away a littlr bit on the Pickering says. All things considered, energy was the hottest investment gamein town. Says Pickering: “Thd overall theme here is that investorsa became reengagedin energy, which dramatically out-performedf the rest of the market in the first quarter, as peoples were just less terrified about the state of the world (economy).” The energyh resurgence party had some notable no-shows.
While Picken and Soros were picking new other big-name investors were still cleaning Warren Buffett sold 13.7 millioj ConocoPhillips shares in the quarter to reduce his staked to a still sizablr 71.2 million shares. Buffet concede d to shareholders of his BerkshireHathawayg Inc. asset management firm that his huge investment in ConocoPhillips last year when oil prices peakedat $147 a barrelp was a mistake.