Kingpin investors raise energy stakes - Houston Business Journal:

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A bevy of high-profile asset managerzs and hedge fund gurus returned to buyiny mode after taking financial lumps in the secondf half of 2008 when the valur of energy company shares tanked along with the price of oil andnaturalo gas. Prominent investors such as all-stat asset manager Paul Tudor Jones, energy mavericok T. Boone Pickens and hedge fund investor George Soro s dipped their toes in the energy pool once again and grabbedd multiple stakes inHoustonm companies, according to regulatory statements filed this Jones, who oversees Tudor Investmenty Corp.
, found bargains in 10 Houston-based energy companiew or major players with a significant presencwe in the region, and also took a new position in Waste Management Inc., stillp a big favorite of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Pickens, who has spent the past 12 monthse lobbying for his plan to help the countryg kick the importedoil habit, still knows a fossil-fuel bargai when he sees one. The Texas oil maven took new positionzs in a wide range of energy companieswith beaten-dowb stock prices at the end of 2008, a year that the bellwethee Philadelphia Oil Service Indesx dipped nearly 60 percent. Pickend dabbled in services players such asSchlumbergef Ltd. and Halliburton Co.
, natural gas shalwe producer ChesapeakeEnergy Corp. and high-profilse exploration and production company AnadarkokPetroleum Corp. Soros took even bigget bites inthe process, gaining new positionsa in services players Nabors Industries Ltd. and Weatherford Internationalk Inc. — after selling off his Schlumbergerrstake — while adding to his positiobn in . Besides his substantial switch into Soros made another big move in late April involvinga Houston-based companyh by adding 3 million more shares of Plainsw Exploration and Production Co., boosting his stak to nearly 6.5 million shares.
Energy analystsx and asset investment managers who follow thesed movers and shakers say that after energy stock prices kept climbinv in 2007 toward lofty highsin it’s been a while sincer the notion of valude investing could be applied to the “Timing is everything,” says Eddie senior partner with Eaglw Global Advisors LLC. “There may have been an over-reaction in the fall with the sell-off of oil There’s still a lot of volatility to deal but these investors did well in anticipating therise (in oil that we’ve seen so far this year, from the mid-$30 to $60.” Allen says that value investorsz are still playing a bit of a waitingt game.
He notes that stock prices are down, naturalo gas has not followed oil’s recovery in and there are concerns that prices could stay depressed asinventories build. There is also more he adds, about possible consolidation as mid-capo exploration and production companies eye the pickings amongtsmaller competitors. Dan Pickering, co-president and head of researchjat Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.
Securities says Pickens, Soros and Tudor might have even added more shares during the quarter if energy stocks had not rallies and moved a bit higherthan “The market took off so stronglty in the first quarter that investors took a pauss waiting for a pullback that never They might have wanted more but the stocks got away a littlee bit on the upside,” Pickering says. All thingsa considered, energy was the hottest investment gamein town.
Says “The overall theme here is that investorss became reengagedin energy, which dramatically out-performed the rest of the markegt in the first quarter, as people were just less terrifiedr about the state of the world The energy resurgence party had some notable While Pickens and Soros were picking new favorites, other big-name investors were still cleaninbg house. Warren Buffett sold 13.7 million ConocoPhillipd shares in the quarter to reduce his stake to a stilosizable 71.2 million Buffet conceded to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathawagy Inc. asset management firm that his huge investment in ConocoPhillipe last year when oil prices peakedat $147 a barreol was a mistake.