Dallas Morning News – Hedge fund operator and oil prognosticator T. Boone Pickens liquidated one of his hedge funds last month as the stock markets plunged.

The Dallas billionaire converted his energy equity fund to cash and offered investors the opportunity to withdraw their money early.

The fund started with $2 billion and could be down to around $400 million to $500 million after withdrawals, according to someone familiar with the fund.

The fund was down 60 percent this year after heady gains in previous years.

Read Complete Article

Tags: alum, caxton, global-economy, john-paul, medallion, oeh, performance-gains, third-party

CNBC – About half of the investors in T. Boone Pickens’ energy-oriented equity hedge fund have asked to withdraw their money on the heels of losses of about 60 percent this year, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people close to the matter.

Pickens and his investment fund have lost $2 billion since peaking in late June, Pickens told the CBS program ’60 Minutes’ on Sunday.

His fund, BP Capital, will have about $400 million to $500 million after expected withdrawals, the Journal said.

A few weeks ago, Pickens moved the fund almost entirely into cash to help ride out the volatility in the energy patch, the paper said, citing people close to the matter.

Read Complete Article

Tags: absolute-return, alan-greenspan, french-oil, investment-returns, israel, john-paul, journalism, medallion, oeh, staffers, third-party, trillion

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – A national program known as the Intelligent Community Initiative (ICI) is offering an alternative restructuring operation using interconnected client-server databases and online training, resulting, the company says, in self-sustaining financial communities which are not as vulnerable to global financial collapse.

Through its Business Incubation and Facilitation Division, the ICI provides a network for businesses that are integral to (and support) the community. A not insignificant benefit to this approach, ICI says, is that more tightly linked businesses and individuals beholden to their bonds in the community require much less governmental intervention. The ICI plan radically reduces the need for government regulations that limit efficiency.

In September ICI announced an alternative to the Pickens Plan called Operation Energy Transition (OET). According to ICI analysis, the plan that oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens released in July 2008 intensifies the problems of the Peak Oil crisis by transferring dependence on oil to operate automobiles to dependence on natural gas to do the same.

Intelligent Communities President Barry Krusch says, “Not only does the Pickens Plan fail to provide a solid solution to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, but it also lacks the detailed analysis that any comprehensive plan should include. Briefly put, it is too much Pickens, and not enough Plan”.

While the Pickens Plan recommends ramping up wind energy to feed electric grids for powering urban centers, a strategy also to be deployed by OET, the secondary goal of the Pickens Plan to use natural gas to power automobiles requires not only a significant (and expensive) change to the national transportation infrastructure, it also unfortunately shifts reliance on one fossil fuel to another. Natural gas is nonrenewable, which means that when supplies decrease, prices jump and everyone scrambles to search for the next fuel source. And when other countries join the natural gas craze, the supply further diminishes and prices soar.

The alternative answer proposed by Intelligent Communities, Operation Energy Transition, calls for a ramped-up increase in telecommuting, innovations such as carpooling software and a new mode of transport it refers to as intellitaxis, and an enhanced focus on more commonly known ideas such as alternative vehicles and increasing solar and wind technology and availability. While the Pickens Plan can be described in just 2 or 3 sentences, adequately describing OET takes a wall map, which is conveniently located on the OET site.

“If we’re going to solve the problem, let’s solve it”, Krusch said. “Rolling out a plan which is destined to put America yet again behind the eight ball is not the plan we need: Operation Energy Transition is.”

Alex Akesson

Editor for HedgeCo.Net
Email: alex@hedgeco.net

HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!

Tags: advisory-services, boston, due-diligence-service, john-paul

24/7 Wall St. – On Sunday, T. Boone Pickens issued a press release stating that he had met with Senator Obama in Reno, Nevada to discuss his energy plans.  This follows the statement he issued Friday stating that he had met with Senator McCain in Aspen, Colorado to discuss his energy plans. 

Pickens calls this non-partisan in both meetings and stressed that the Pickens movement hopes to get legislation passed in the first 100 days of the next administration.

As far as the Obama meeting Pickens stated (among other things): "I shared my feeling of encouragement at the Senator’s willingness to speak out on energy issues recently in the campaign, but told him that there is still much more that needs to be done……. It would be inappropriate for me to speak for Senator Obama. I have a real sense, however, that he was very engaged. He understands the issues and is interested and excited by the work we are doing to educate and involve the people of this great nation."