Hedge fund legend George Soros is a major financial backer of clean energy, but his Soros Fund Management firm bought shares of the country's two biggest coal producers in the second quarter, according to SEC filings.
The companies are Peabody Energy and Arch Coal. Soros bought more than 1 million shares of Peabody and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal. At Tuesday's share prices, that puts the Peabody stake at more than $1.13 million, and the Arch Coal stake at $768,810.
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“If he buys enough stock to have controlling interests in these coal businesses, closes them down and leaves the coal in the ground, we might accept that he is a true believer, that his investment was all about stopping climate change and saving the environment," [H. Sterling Burnett] said.
“But my suspicion is that he helped to drive stocks down, bought as many shares as he can, and, when stocks rebound, he can sell his shares and make a huge profit.”
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My take is that George Soros is an unprincipled unprintable who has mercilessy ground the coal industry into the ground so that he can pick up dirt cheap shares and ride them all the way back up again - changing his tune of course to make it happen. I am sick and tired of the impunity with which people like George Soros can wreck other peoples' lives and then rob them. Now maybe in this particular case he isn't doing that, but it sure looks like it.
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But anyway, the take-home message from this report is that it is probably a VERY good time to be buying coal shares (Peabody (BTU) was up 25% last night in the US), and in Oz the best of the lot is surely SMR.
SMR Price at posting:
11.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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