VINY 2026 – Oldfield’s Richard Garstang This: Data Compounder Hidden Inside An Oil Company Could 4x

At the Value Invest New York 2026 conference, Richard Garstang, Managing Partner and fund manager at Oldfield Partners, made the case that this stock is a data business that happens to sit inside the energy sector – and that the market is pricing it like an oilfield services company because it can’t see past the label. Oldfield Partners is a London-based value shop running concentrated portfolios of about 35 positions. Garstang argued that the disconnect between what Pason actually does and how the market categorizes it has created a real opportunity.

His broader point was one that came up throughout the conference: energy is still deeply out of favor, and inside the sector are businesses whose economics – cash generation, margins, recurring revenue – would get much higher multiples in any other industry. The job for value investors is to separate business quality from sector sentiment.

North American land drilling isn’t going away for decades regardless of the energy transition. At the same time, drilling operations are becoming more digital, which means more demand for the data systems that run on rigs.  This company is the dominant provider of those systems – capital-light, high-margin, and not very sensitive to commodity prices.