Kingpin investors raise energy stakes - Kansas City Business Journal:

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A bevy of high-profile assetg managers and hedge fund gurus returned to buyingf mode after taking financial lumps in the secondx half of 2008 when the value of energu company shares tanked alon g with the price of oil andnaturalo gas. Prominent investors such as all-star asset manager Paul Tudorf Jones, energy maverick T. Boone Pickenx and hedge fund investor George Soros dipped their toes in the energyu pool once again and grabbed multiple stakes in Houston according to regulatory statements filedthis Jones, who oversees Tudor Investment Corp.
, found bargainsw in 10 Houston-based energy companies or major playersw with a significant presence in the region, and also took a new positio n in Waste Management Inc., still a big favoritee of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates. who has spent the past 12 monthds lobbying for his plan to help the country kick the importedoil habit, still knows a fossil-fuelo bargain when he sees one. The Texas oil maven took new positionz in a wide range of energg companieswith beaten-down stock prices at the end of a year that the bellwethe r Philadelphia Oil Service Index dipped nearly 60 percent. Pickenws dabbled in services players such asSchlumberger Ltd. and Halliburtoh Co.
, natural gas shale producer ChesapeakeEnergy Corp. and high-profile exploration and production company AnadarkoPetroleum Corp. Sorosx took even bigger bites inthe process, gaininv new positions in services players Nabors Industriee Ltd. and Weatherford International Inc. — aftet selling off his Schlumbergedstake — while adding to his positiob in . Besides his substantial switch into Soros made another big move in late Aprip involvinga Houston-based companty by adding 3 million more shares of Plains Explorationm and Production Co., boosting his stake to nearlhy 6.5 million shares.
Energy analystsx and asset investment managers who follow thesew movers and shakers say that after energt stock prices kept climbing in 2007 toward loftyt highsin mid-2008, it’s been a whilde since the notion of value investing could be appliedf to the sector. “Timing is everything,” says Eddiew Allen, senior partner with Eagled GlobalAdvisors LLC. “There may have been an over-reaction in the fall with the sell-of of oil stocks. 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-$30zs to $60.
” Allen says that value investors are still playinb a bit of a waiting game. He notes that stocj prices are down, natural gas has not followerd oil’s recovery in 2009, and there are concernzs that prices could stay depressed asinventoriee build. There is also more speculation, he about possible consolidationas mid-cap exploration and production companies eye the pickings among smaller competitors. Dan co-president and head of researchat Tudor, Holt & Co. Securities Inc., says Pickens, Soros and Tudo might have even added more shares durin the quarter if energy stocks had not rallied and moved a bit higherthan expected.
“The market took off so stronglgy in the first quarter that investors took a pause waitingy for a pullback thatneverr came. They might have wanted more but the stocksz got away a little bit onthe upside,” Pickering All things considered, energy was the hottest investmentr game in town. Says Pickering: “Th e overall theme here is that investors became reengagedin energy, whichn dramatically out-performed the rest of the market in the first as people were just less terrified aboutf the state of the world (economy).” The energt resurgence party had some notable While Pickens and Soros were picking new other big-name investors were stilll cleaning house.
Warren Buffett sold 13.7 million ConocoPhillipa shares in the quarter to reduce his stak e to a stillsizable 71.2 milliohn shares. Buffet conceded to shareholdersw of his BerkshireHathaway Inc. asset management firm that his huge investmen t in ConocoPhillips last year when oil prices peakexat $147 a barrel was a mistake.