One of the Last Remaining O&G Managers: How to Profit from the Electric Grid Boom

While ESG mandates and the oil price decline driven by the shale revolution have decimated the oil and gas (O&G) hedge fund sector, a select few managers remain. One of them is Josh Young, CIO of Bison Interests, who identifies significant opportunities in the electric grid expansion theme. In an interview with Hedge Fund Alpha, Young discussed his journey and how he has successfully navigated a brutal market for O&G investors.

Background on Josh Young

Born in Santa Monica, Calif., Young now lives in Houston, Tex. He jokes that a series of “increasingly poor decisions” led him from Santa Monica and its beautiful weather to Houston, where it’s hot and humid about half the year.

Young’s grandfather received his math Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and as a result, Young felt compelled to study economics there.

“I think that decision to go from beautiful, bucolic Santa Monica to Hyde Park in South Chicago to study economics is sort of emblematic,” he said. “I'm always interested in finding the best thing I can find that's the most interesting, sort of an independent of level of difficulty. And so oil and gas is a very volatile area and we sort of knew that.”

Before co-founding Bison Materials in 2015, Young was at UBS’s private bank, and he observed that oil stocks had plummeted, presenting a great opportunity to launch an oil and gas equity product because everyone was leaving the space.

Also see: Carson Block: There’s Power In Feeling Like You Have Nothing To Lose [In-depth Interview]

Founding Bison Materials

Young and his co-founder named the firm “Bison” because bison are the only four-legged animals that face into a storm and move through it more safely and more quickly. They decided to launch Bison Materials in 2015 because they saw hundreds of firms with oil or gas public equity strategies shutting down. They met with family offices and endowments, discovering that nearly all of them were angry with one or two public equity oil and gas managers for a variety of reasons.