Kingpin investors raise energy stakes - Pittsburgh Business Times:

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A bevy of high-profile asset managers and hedgs fund gurus returned to buyiny mode after taking financial lumps in the secone half of 2008 when the value of energy company shares tanked alonf with the price of oil andnatural gas. Prominen investors such as all-star asset managert Paul Tudor Jones, energy maverick T. Boone Pickends and hedge fund investoer George Soros dipped their toes in the energy pool once againn and grabbed multiple stakes inHouston companies, accordin g to regulatory statements filed this month. Jones, who oversees Tudo Investment Corp.
, found bargains in 10 Houston-based energy companies or major players with a significant presence in the and also took a new positiomn in WasteManagement Inc., still a big favorite of Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates. who has spent the past 12 months lobbying for his plan to help the country kick the importedoil habit, still knowa a fossil-fuel bargain when he sees one. The Texaa oil maven took new positionzs in a wide range of energy companieswith beaten-down stock prices at the end of a year that the bellwethedr Philadelphia Oil Service Index dipped nearly 60 Pickens dabbled in services playeras such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co.
, natural gas shale producer ChesapeakwEnergy Corp. and high-profile exploration and production company Anadarko Petroleum Soros took even bigger bites in the gaining new positions in services playerd NaborsIndustries Ltd. and Weatherford International Inc. after selling off his Schlumbergerstaks — while adding to his positionn in . Besides his substantial switchinto Weatherford, Sorows made another big move in late April involving a Houston-basedc company by adding 3 million more shares of Plains Exploratiom and Production Co., boosting his stakd to nearly 6.
5 million Energy analysts and asset investment managers who follow thesse movers and shakers say that afterr energy stock prices kept climbing in 2007 toward loftyg highs in mid-2008, it’s been a while sincwe the notion of value investing could be applied to the “Timing is everything,” says Eddie Allen, senior partner with Eaglr Global Advisors LLC. “There may have been an over-reactionn 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-$30xs to $60.
” Allen says that value investors are still playing a bit of a waiting game. He notees that stock prices are down, natural gas has not followede oil’s recovery in 2009, and there are concerns that prices could stay depressed asinventorieas build. There is also more he adds, about possibl consolidation as mid-cap exploration and production companies eye the pickingsd amongsmaller competitors. Dan co-president and head of researchat Tudor, Holt & Co. Securitiee Inc.
, says Pickens, Soros and Tudor might have even added more shares durinh the quarter if energy stocks had not rallied and moved a bit higherthan “The market took off so strongly in the firsr quarter that investors took a pause waitingb for a pullback that never came. They might have wanted more but the stockd got away a little bit on the Pickering says. All things considered, energuy was the hottest investment gamein town. Says “The overall theme here is that investors became reengageein energy, which dramatically out-performed the rest of the market in the firstf quarter, as people were just less terrifief about the state of the worldf (economy).
” The energy resurgence partyh had some notable no-shows. While Pickensd and Soros were pickingnew favorites, othere big-name investors were still cleaningg house. Warren Buffett sold 13.7 million ConocoPhillips shares in the quarter to reduce his stake to a stillsizablse 71.2 million shares. Buffet conceded to shareholder s of his BerkshireHathaway Inc. assetr management firm that his huge investmenr in ConocoPhillips last year when oil priced peakedat $147 a barrel was a