First Eagle Funds Manager Charles de Vaulx Discusses the Energy Sector, Picks Burlington Resources (BR)

Charles de Vaulx is manager of the First Eagle Funds, whose flagship fund -- the First Eagle Global Fund -- has returned about fifteen and a half percent annually since its inception in the 'Seventies. He was interviewed in Barron's this weekend. Excerpt:

...But I still like the energy sector. In a lot of exploration and production companies what is intriguing is many of them trade at a significant discount to the spot price of oil and gas and also the futures price. That's the case with Burlington Resources [ticker: BR], for instance. The stock is trading at $77. At $77, the price of natural gas at only $7 to $7.50 per mcf [thousand cubic feet] is discounted, and is still quite a bit lower than the actual price and the futures price. I think the discount exists because it hasn't been arbitraged away yet. I wouldn't be surprised to see some E&P companies being acquired by private-equity people, who would then go out and hedge forward and lock in the price of the underlying commodity as far out as possible.

Full article here (paid sub req'd).