Filenews 14 January 2026
By Christopher Helman and John Hyatt
After the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday by the US military, Wall Street observers were quick to declare the big winner: Paul Singer, the manager of a hedge fund with a net worth of $6.7 billion known for investing in distressed assets around the world. Amber Energy, a Houston-based startup financed by Elliott, recently bought Venezuelan oil company Citgo, which has three refineries in Louisiana, Texas and Illinois, as well as a distribution network of 4,000 gas stations, at a US federal court auction, for $5.9 billion. - a price that many consider an opportunity.
Singer, a Trump supporter, may indeed be the big winner, but he's not the only Wall Street tycoon expected to benefit from the deal with Citgo. Forbes spoke to several people involved in the deal, and it turned out that there are other major players backing Elliot and Amber's bid to manage Citgo, in addition to funds and investment firms that are expected to make huge profits.
According to a person with knowledge of the deal, Elliott finances one-third of the equity and leads a Wall Street consortium. According to two sources, Oaktree Capital Management, a Los Angeles-based investment firm led by billionaires Howard Marks and Bruce Karsh, is involved in the consortium. The consortium also includes hedge fund Silver Point Capital, with assets worth $43 billion. Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, the firm was founded and run by Ed Mulé and Robert O'Shea, former Goldman Sachs partners.
Apollo Global Management, run by another billionaire Trump supporter, Marc Rowan (net worth $8.3 billion), who was also among the candidates for Treasury secretary, has taken over the financing of the debt, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. Court documents show that this means taking on a debt of €3,8 billion from Amber and the issuance of convertible bonds amounting to $2.85 billion. A share capital investment of €25 million is also mentioned from an Elliott subsidiary.
Additionally, there are energy industry players and tycoons who contributed to the founding of Amber in August 2024, with the express purpose of bidding for Citgo. Amber's President is Jeff Stevens, a former co-founder (along with billionaire Paul Foster) of Western Refining in 1997, which started with a factory in El Paso, Texas. Stevens and Foster sold Western in 2017 for $6 billion to Andeavor, which was then run by Greg Goff, CEO of Amber. Two years later, they sold Andeavor to Marathon Petroleum for $36 billion.
Goff and Stevens, who held the shares in Marathon, met Elliott's energy team, led by John Pike, when they rallied against Marathon. They initially managed to pressure CEO Gary Heminger to retire in 2019. In 2020 they helped sell Marathon's subsidiary, Speedway, which operated 4,000 service stations at the time. Elliott has also been promoting Phillips 66 for years, in which it has a stake worth $2.7 billion, and pushed for asset sales.
Amber's bid for Citgo was controversial long before Trump's latest move. After a decade of litigation and a lengthy auction process, federal judge Leonard Stark in Delaware issued his 168-page opinion explaining the reasoning behind his decision in favour of Amber, even though its bid was $2 billion lower than another competitor's offering.
Citgo's biggest competitor was a consortium led by the small Canadian mining company Gold Reserve (its mines were expropriated by former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 2011). Initially, the consortium was also financed by Koch Industries. Gold Reserve executive vice president Paul Rivett is still angry that he didn't win the auction with a bid of about $8 billion. dollars. "Why is Citgo going to a lower bidder?" asks Rivett, who claims he had secured funding from J.P. Morgan.
It is worth noting that neither Caracas nor PDVSA (Venezuela's state oil company) will receive a dollar of the $5,9 billion. The entire amount is intended to cover the claims of a number of companies and investors who purchased bonds secured by these assets. Among these companies is ConocoPhillips, which is expected to receive $1.4 billion, the Vancouver Stock Exchange-listed mining company Rusoro, which will collect €400 million in cash. and in convertible bonds €650 million and Red Tree Investments, a subsidiary of the Greenwich-based hedge fund Contrarian Capital Management, which is expected to receive at least $330 million. A big winner is also New York-based Tenor Capital Management, a hedge fund worth $9 billion. It acquired the claims of mining company Crystallex against Venezuela, after Hugo Chávez nationalized the country's mining prospects in 2011. After years of spending money on litigation, Tenor will receive the largest share, amounting to more than $1 billion (from Amber), intended to settle Crystallex's claims.
Elliott has extensive experience of moving in troubled government bond markets. Singer, now 81, bought Argentina's troubled government bonds after the country's economic collapse in 2001 and held them for more than a decade before finally selling them in 2016 to raise $2.4 billion, while it had bought them for $117 million. Their nominal value was $617 million.
Oaktree also has previous experience in Venezuela, where it acquired a troubled undersea oil services company in 2010. Goff doesn't seem to want to break up Citgo. Instead, it wants to acquire and improve its former factories, which can process about 800,000 barrels per day. "We look forward to working with Citgp's talented team to strengthen the business through capital investments and operational quality," Goff commented in a press release issued by Amber.
Decades ago, before the sanctions, refineries had adapted to process Venezuela's heavy acidic crude. Due to US sanctions, they have largely replaced it with oil from the US, Mexico and Canada. Whether they return to Venezuelan crude oil depends on the lifting of sanctions and how cheaply they can get it. If Amber can take advantage of the abundant supply of oil at discounted prices, this could secure her big profits.
While Elliot pays $5.9 billion, Citgo may be worth a lot more. Citgo's plants had been upgraded to process heavy crude from Venezuela before U.S. sanctions were imposed in 2019, and they could soon do so again as Trump seeks to bring back crude imports from Venezuela. Analysts citing court documents estimate Citgo's value at between $11 billion and $13 billion.
In the last year, Citgo's EBITDA amounted to approximately $1 billion. dollars, which means that Amber pays about 6x the EBITDA to buy the assets. It seems to be a good discount compared to America's leading refiners, such as Valero and Marathon, which trade 11 and 10x EBITDA, while smaller PBF and Delek trade significantly higher due to reduced earnings.
Another indicator to consider is the value of a barrel of daily refining oil capacity. The deal values Citgo at $7,300 per barrel refined daily. An amount that has a correspondence with companies such as Valero Energy, which processes 3.2 million barrels per day from 15 refineries and its business value (equity plus debt) amounts to $52 billion. This equates to about $16,000 per barrel per day.
Some companies in the same category as Citgo trade at much higher prices. HF Sinclair, with 700,000 barrels per day (and more pipeline assets), is at $15,000 per barrel per day. Delek, with a production of 400,000 barrels per day, is valued at $13,000 per barrel per day. This means that if Goff and his team manage to improve the operations of Citgo's factories and capitalize on the company's EBITDA of $1 billion could add billions to Amber's value.
Amber, Elliott, and Stevens declined to officially comment on the deal, given that it has not yet been finalized. Probably a smart move, given that there is always the possibility that an appeal will be made and Judge Stark's decision will be overturned, or that the sale will be reconsidered due to geopolitical shifts. Venezuela's new president, Delcy Rodriguez, recently stated that Venezuela does not and will not recognize the forced sale of Citgo and will also appeal Judge Stark's decision. PDVSA, which has already argued in court that Citgo is being sold at an exorbitantly low price, argues that Venezuela should receive a share of the profits.
