去年投资者开始瞄准Cheniere能量,因为液化天然气产业从投机性发挥转向过度夸张的现货市场。LNG装备现在推动了亿万富翁的战斗,带有支持者Carl Icahn.and Seth Klarman on one side and short-seller Jim Chanos on the other.
icahn讲述亚博赞助欧冠that he maintains his long call on Cheniere. “When I look at this company, I still think it’s very undervalued,” he says.
Cheniere was co-founded in 2000 by Charif Souki, an oil and gas executive, to develop LNG terminals throughout the U.S. The Houston-based company, one of the country’s first movers in LNG, owns the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana and has an ambitious expansion plan that includes developing other areas in that state and Texas. But such work is expensive: At the end of the second quarter, Cheniere had $19.5 billion in outstanding debt and negative cash flow.
尽管有这些不利因素,投资者包括活性ist Icahn and hedge fund manager Klarman have taken big positions in the company, touting its long-term prospects. Icahn contends that the shale revolution changed the game for Cheniere by bringing development costs down and that LNG demand will surge as countries look for new sources of cheap fuel, adding that the company already has a strong portfolio of LNG contracts. Cheniere estimates that if all of its development plans come to pass, it will control as much as 14 percent of global LNG supply by 2025. That would put the company in a leading position, but it’s taking a big gamble.
Between them, Icahn’s New York–based Icahn Enterprises and Klarman’s Boston-headquartered Baupost Group own almost 30 percent of Cheniere. Klarman has been quietly building his position since 2014, but Icahn has opted to take an activist stance. In regulatory filings last year, he griped that Cheniere was spending too much money and that management was overpaid. To realize the full value of its development projects, the company will have to grow smartly.
在2015年8月宣布在Cheniere的股份后不久,Icahn在11会员董事会上有两个席位。去年年底,他从公司那里赶上了Souki,然后是石油和天然气行业中最高的CEO之一。当董事会解雇了Souki时,伊坎在一个人中赞成了statement on his blog。“我衷心祝贺,委员会让我完全支持的”胆量“采取这些行动,”他写道。Souki由Veteran Oil和Bas Executive Joct Fusco取代。
虽然Icahn推动了他在行政级别所需的改变,但这是他对其投资所得到的所有人。Cheniere于2015年减少了其价值的几乎一半,今年截至今年股价未反弹,最后一周以43.63美元结束。9月6日,巴克莱下调了股票的价格目标,从64美元到53美元,在液化天然气市场上推动供过于求关于全球需求的问题。
Those concerns are shared by Chanos, founder and president of New York–based hedge fund firm Kynikos Associates, who has been shorting Cheniere since 2015. During a presentation on the company at May’s SkyBridge Alternatives Conference in Las Vegas, Chanos contended that the company’s complex financial structure, high levels of debt and overbuilding will make it “crazy expensive” relative to its peers, even if demand for LNG starts to tick up. “I don’t know what Carl sees that I don’t,” he said.
Chanos认为,关于LNG球员的牛熊案有很多“误解”。在他的演讲中,他称之为持有公司结构,即Cheniere用于其项目“金融工程疯狂。”此时,Cheniere的基本案例是利息,税收,折旧和摊销前的21亿美元的指导,到2021年,其中25%来自无核制的业务。这些计算与EBITDA等LNG同龄人相比,这些计算量为11至12倍EBITDA,如雪佛龙公司和皇家荷兰壳牌,在五到八次2020 EBITDA上交易。
新的Cheniere首席执章集似乎曾在步幅中服用这些障碍。该公司于2月份获得了首次液化液晶终端;在第二季度的盈利期间,福斯科表示,他专注于“财务纪律,并寻求更快,更便宜地完成工作。”他补充说,Cheniere将开始发布盈利指导,并且该公司将披露更多财务信息,因为他补充说,随后将开发者转移到液化天然气终端的运营商。
Fusco’s plans include the operational and governance changes that investors like Icahn want to see, but it may be a few years before they start to pay off. In the meantime, analysts are starting to cool on Icahn Enterprises, for which energy sector investments are a top five segment of the portfolio.
在8月份研究备注中,UBS高级分析师Brennan Havken将Icahn公开交易控股公司从中立销售下调,引用持续压力持有公司和ICAHN Capital,在ICAHN企业雨伞下运营的投资基金的投资基金。
Hawken projected that shares in Icahn Enterprises could lose as much as half of their value over the next year. The stock closed at $50.87 on the Nasdaq on September 2, down 17.93 percent for the year.
“This marks the fourth consecutive quarter with a loss of greater than 5 percent in the fund,” Hawken wrote. Icahn Enterprises’ long book, which includes the Cheniere position, was down about 6 percent at the end of the second quarter, the analyst added; he also noted that the portfolio’s 149 percent net short position is hurting performance as equities keep rallying. “As a result, without a market downturn, we would not be surprised if investment performance continued to suffer,” Hawken wrote, “and we remain cautious on the stock overall given the lack of transparency into the portfolio.”
为他而言,Icahn引用了Cheniere当前LNG合同的实力,并潜力需要更多的市场份额。“迄今为止新的首席执行官所做的变化都是积极的,”他说。“当你看待合同时,这是一个无意识的人。”
Carl Icahn和Jim Chanos都会出现在交付的阿尔法会议上,由其举办亚博赞助欧冠和CNBC,9月13日在纽约皮埃尔酒店。