Securities Lawyers Blog
The law offices of Gana Weinstein LLP continue to report on investment losses suffered by investors in oil and gas investments that brokerage firms have increasingly recommended to retail investors in recent years. These investments include private placements, master limited partnerships (MLPs), leveraged ETFs, mutual funds, and even individual stocks. See Overconcentrated in Oil and Gas Investments?, MLP Fund MainStay Cushing Royalty Energy Hurt by Failing Oil & Gas Prices; Oil and Gas Investments – Issuers Profit While Investors Take All the Risk
Recently, the according to Bloomberg, BlackGold Capital Management, the energy-focused hedge fund that manages the BlackGold Opportunity Fund LLC and BlackGold Opportunity Offshore Fund LLC (BlackGold Funds) announced that losses in December 2014 were almost triple its initial report after an auditor examined how it valued debt holdings and certain changes were made to the valuation.
According to SEC records, the BlackGold Opportunity Fund was launched in 2009. Since that time the Fund has touted an annualized rate of return of 20% since inception. In 2014, the Fund suffered 12 percent decline compared with a 13 percent loss for oil and gas companies in the Bloomberg high-yield bond index. KKR & Co., which acquired nearly a 25% stake in BlackGold Capital Management reported that BlackGold lost only 6 percent in December originally which was recently revised to 17%. Given the enormous decline already experienced, it is possible that the BlackGold Funds will continue to suffer substantial declines unless the price of oil experiences a tremendous rebound in the near future.