Oops: Protector of the Left George Soros invested in 11 fossil fuel firms in 2016

Oops: Protector of the Left George Soros invested in 11 fossil fuel firms in 2016
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The world’s most left-leaning billionaire is also apparently the world’s biggest hypocrite. In 2016, George Soro invested $238 million in eleven (count ’em) oil and gas companies, according to his federal financial filings, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.

Soros’s chief investment officer (CIO), who was fired last year, purchased 116 new stocks, among them oil and gas companies. Among the companies into which Soros poured money in an entity called Quantum Group of Funds, which is based in the Cayman Islands.

The second largest Soros energy investment last year was $54 million he paid to buy 3.7 million shares in Columbia Pipeline, an oil and gas pipeline company. Columbia Pipeline completed its merger with TransAmerica — of Keystone XL Pipeline fame — in June 2016. Obama rejected the pipeline, but President Donald Trump has approved it.

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As of his latest filing Sept. 30, 2016, Soros still maintained his shares in Columbia even after the merger was complete. If he kept his investment into 2017, he reaped an $8.9 million profit.

As previously reported by The Daily Caller, one of Soros’s biggest donations to climate change advocates was a $30 million gift he gave to former Vice President Al Gore for his group called Climate Reality.

But last year, Soros spent $93 million purchasing 3.1 million shares in Williams Company stock. Williams is a Tulsa, Okla.-based company. It was Soros’s largest energy bet in 2016. Williams builds large-scale pipelines to connect new, shale gas supply regions from the Marcellus and Utica shale regions.

Through another 195-mile pipeline, Williams is connecting shale producing regions in northeastern Pennsylvania to markets in the Mid-Atlantic and to southeastern states.

Soros decided to invest in all facets of the oil industry. He purchased 685,000 shares of Baker Hughes, one of the biggest names in oil drilling with a focus on deep sea drilling, in 2016, a transaction valued at $38.3 million.

Baker Hughes operate oil drilling platforms and technologies in North America, South America, North Sea, Europe/Russia Caspian, Asia Pacific, Saudi Arabia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America, according to the company’s website.

The other oil and gas companies in the Soros portfolio include Petroleo Brasilerosa, California Resources, Valvoline, Rice Energy, Targa Resources, and Diamondback. The billionaire also sold two previous investments in the oil industry last year, in Marathon Oil and Schlumberger, an oil drilling company similar to Baker Hughes.

Soros also decided to invest in other firms that consume fossil fuels.  He bought stock in American Airlines, Delta, Southwest, Sprint, and United Continental.

He also invested in the automotive sector, including Car Max, Hertz, and three major American auto parts companies, Delphi Automotive, WABCO and Visteon. He also invested 8,916 shares in the motorcycle company, Harley Davidson. That investment is valued at $468,000.

All told, Soros realized $44.2 million in profits just from oil and gas investments in 2016 — this even as he claims to support environmental groups in combating climate change. A July 10, 2009 memo from Soros director Nancy Youman of his Open Society Foundation — the main nonprofit entity for Soros’ political contributions — reported the billionaire pledged $10 million over a five-year period to the Climate Policy Institute. He gave the group $8.2 million in 2015, according to the Open Society’s IRS Form 990 tax filing. He also committed $500,000 to the Energy Action Coalition.

The 2009 Youman memo was one of 2,576 Open Society emails that were released last August by the group DCLeaks.

Ironically, the Open Society Institute’s Youth Initiate is “working closely” with a group called 350.org, which tries to persuade investors to divest oil and gas stocks in favor of renewable energy technologies.

Dr. Steven J. Allen, vice president of the Capital Research Center, told TheDCNF that Soros embraces a double standard because he can:

One of the things we’ve learned from wealthy environmentalists is that they don’t necessarily put their money where their mouth is. They tend to have an attitude of ‘those rules are for other people.’  The moral rules they create are for other people and not for them.

Jason Schwartz, a spokesman for Greenpeace USA, told TheDCNF that his group has received no contributions from Soros or his affiliates. “What George Soros does with his investments is not our concern,” Schwartz said.

A Sierra Club spokesman told TheDCNF, “I couldn’t give you a comment.”

TheDCNF contacted the Open Society Foundations, George Soros’ activist arm for comment. They did not respond to our inquiries.

This report, by Richard Pollock, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

LU Staff

LU Staff

Promoting and defending liberty, as defined by the nation’s founders, requires both facts and philosophical thought, transcending all elements of our culture, from partisan politics to social issues, the workings of government, and entertainment and off-duty interests. Liberty Unyielding is committed to bringing together voices that will fuel the flame of liberty, with a dialogue that is lively and informative.

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