Billionaire Peter Thiel buys 1% stake in Argentine Vaca Muerta oil firm, filing shows
VIST•Thiel buys 1% of Vista through hedge fund
BUENOS AIRES, Aug. 15 (Reuters) - Palantir chair and co-founder Peter Thiel has bought a 1% stake in Argentina's Vista, one of the largest oil companies operating in the country's Vaca Muerta shale formation, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The filing, published on Friday, comes four months after the tech billionaire met with Argentine President Javier Milei in the presidential palace, after which Milei told a local media outlet they discussed economic policies and his opposition to wealth taxes.
Thiel had recently bought a mansion in an upscale neighborhood of Buenos Aires, local media reported.
The billionaire's Thiel Macro LLC hedge fund bought around 1.2 million American Depositary Shares in Vista worth about $76 million, according to the SEC filing, equivalent to 1% of Vista's capital.
Vista operations and investment plans in Vaca Muerta
The fund declared a portfolio of $418.7 million, including stakes in Vistra, Amazon and power and energy firms American Electric Power, DTE Energy, FirstEnergy, CMS Energy and X-Energy.
Vista operates in Vaca Muerta, home to the world's second-largest shale gas and fourth-largest oil reserves, located in Neuquén province in Argentina's Patagonia region.
Vista currently produces 160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and has invested more than $6.5 billion in Argentina. In May, it raised its investment and production outlook for Vaca Muerta, a formation roughly the size of Belgium.
Milei has expressed his intention to leverage Patagonia's vast open spaces and cold climate to build data centers. Data center projects have met opposition in other parts of Latin America due to their high water and energy needs.
