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(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House is about to revitalize a group of assets long under attack by the Republican Party.
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That’s according to a pair of hedge fund managers whose strategies are tied to decarbonizing the energy supply chain. They’re expecting Trump’s stated policies of protecting US manufacturing and securing cheap energy to turbocharge select green assets, especially US solar.
Lisa Audet, founder and chief investment officer of Greenwich, Connecticut-based hedge fund Tall Trees Capital Management, says she doesn’t see “the incoming administration as anti-decarbonization.”
Instead, Audet says she expects the incoming “Trump administration will prioritize abundant, reliable, competitive energy sources, which for us are US natural gas, nuclear and solar. Fortunately, all of those are low carbon or zero carbon, which is good for decarbonization.”
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The comments follow a deep selloff of green stocks in the moments right after Trump’s election victory, as investors weighed the ramifications of having a president whose public statements on energy have been pro-oil and anti-wind power. And after years of Republican attacks on investors who embrace climate-friendly policies, the consensus remains that now isn’t the time to buy green assets.
But some money managers are starting to look past the rhetoric.
“We don’t fear a Trump presidency,” said Tal Lomnitzer, senior investment manager on the global sustainable equity team at Janus Henderson Investors. “The dislocations in share prices that we’ve seen since the election probably offer opportunity more than reflecting appropriate levels of risk.”
Per Lekander, chief executive officer of hedge fund Clean Energy Transition, says Trump’s policies represent a “buying opportunity” for green investors. He also says that given the prospect of an escalating tariff war, he’s now targeting green stocks in the US rather than those based in Europe.
Lekander’s London-based hedge fund has been buying up shares of solar-module maker First Solar Inc., which he expects to triple in price in the coming years.
Lomnitzer at Janus Henderson says he thinks “utility scale solar is likely to surprise to the upside under the new Trump administration,” and that the incoming president’s arrival in the White House “actually enhances the prospects.”