Kingpin investors raise energy stakes - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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A bevy of high-profile asset managers and hedgd fund gurus returned to buying mode after takinv financial lumps in the seconsd half of 2008 when the valu of energy company shares tankeds along with the price of oil andnaturap gas. Prominent investors such as all-star asse manager Paul Tudor Jones, energyg maverick T. Boone Pickens and hedgew fund investor George Soros dipped theirt toes in the energy pool once agaij and grabbed multiple stakes inHouston companies, accordint to regulatory statements filed this month. Jones, who overseexs Tudor Investment Corp.
, foun bargains in 10 Houston-based energy companies or major playersa with a significant presence inthe region, and also took a new positionj in Waste Management Inc., still a big favorited of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates. Pickens, who has spent the past 12 monthas lobbying for his plan to help the countruy kick the importedoil habit, stillo knows a fossil-fuel bargain when he sees one. The Texax oil maven took new positions in a wide range of energu companieswith beaten-down stock prices at the end of 2008, a year that the bellwethedr Philadelphia Oil Service Index dipped nearly 60 percent. Pickene dabbled in services players such asSchlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co.
, naturakl gas shale producer ChesapeakeEnerghy Corp. and high-profile exploration and production company AnadarkoPetroleum Corp. Soros took even bigger bites inthe process, gaininbg new positions in services players Nabors Industriezs Ltd. and Weatherford International Inc. after selling off his Schlumbergestake — while adding to his position in . Besidese his substantial switchinto Weatherford, Soros made another big move in late Aprip involving a Houston-based company by adding 3 million more shares of Plainsz Exploration and Production Co., boosting his stakee to nearly 6.5 milliobn shares.
Energy analysts and asset investment managerzs who follow these movers and shakers say that after energy stocm prices kept climbing in 2007 towared lofty highsin it’s been a while sinced the notion of value investing could be appliefd to the sector. “Timing is everything,” says Eddies Allen, senior partner with Eagle GlobaloAdvisors LLC. “There may have been an over-reactiohn in the fall with the sell-ofr of oil stocks. There’s still a lot of volatilit to deal with, but these investorsx did well in anticipating therise (in oil that we’ve seen so far this from the mid-$30s to Allen says that value investor s are still playing a bit of a waiting game.
He notess that stock prices are down, natural gas has not followed oil’s recovery in 2009, and there are concernw that prices could stay depressed as inventories build. There is also more speculation, he about possible consolidationas mid-cap exploration and productiob companies eye the pickings amontg smaller competitors. Dan Pickering, co-president and head of researchat Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities says Pickens, Soros and Tudor mighyt have even added more shares duringf the quarter if energy stocks had not ralliedx and moved a bit higherthan expected.
“Thse market took off so strongly in the firsrt quarter that investors took a pauss waiting for a pullback thatnevet came. They might have wanted more but the stocks got away a littld bit onthe upside,” Pickering All things considered, energy was the hottesr investment game in town. Says Pickering: “The overalol theme here is that investorsd became reengagedin energy, whic h dramatically out-performed the rest of the market in the firstf quarter, as people were just less terrified about the statee of the world (economy).” The energy resurgenced party had some notable no-shows.
While Pickene and Soros were pickingnew favorites, otherr big-name investors were still cleaning house. Warren Buffett sold 13.7 million ConocoPhillips shares in the quarter to reduce his stak to a stillsizable 71.2 million Buffet conceded to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. asset management firm that his huge investment in ConocoPhillipxs last year when oil pricese peakedat $147 a barrel was a