Seventy Seven Energy Inc (SSE): Owl Creek Discloses 5.80% Passive Stake

Jeffrey Altman’s Owl Creek Asset Management has bought 2.8 million shares in Seventy Seven Energy Inc (NYSE:SSE), an oilfield services company. The holding has a current market value of $65 million and represents 5.80% of the company’s total outstanding stock.

Seventy Seven Energy Inc (NYSE:SSE) is $1 billion market cap company that spun off from Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK) on June, 30. Since its IPO the company’s stock has declined by 5%, despite announcing an 8% increase in revenue in the second quarter compared to the previous one.  On a year-to-year basis, however, the revenues decreased by 5%, to $549 million.

Owl Creek is likely to have been lured by the low stock price and pretty solid prospects given that Seventy Seven Energy Inc (NYSE:SSE) is backed by its bigger sister Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK), although the company is looking to diversify. In the last quarter revenues from non-Chesapeake customers have increased from the first quarter to $6.9 million.

In addition to Altman, Carl Icahn holds 4.7 million shares in Seventy Seven Energy Inc (NYSE:SSE), acquired following the spin-off. His stake has a value of $125 million and represents just a notch under 10% of the total outstanding shares.  Icahn may seek board representation or try to influence Seventy Seven Energy Inc (NYSE:SSE) otherwise, as he filed a Schedule 13D with Security and Exchange Commission.

Also worth noticing, Cary Baetz, chief financial officer at Seventy Seven Energy Inc (NYSE:SSE) has recently acquired 430 shares that have a market value of  approximately $10,000.

Owl Creek was founded by Jeffrey Altman in June, 2001, after previously working as a portfolio manager at Franklin Mutual Advisers, LLC. Altman’s equity portfolio has 20 stocks and a market value of roughly $2 billion. The portfolio is fairly diversified across industries, but technology stocks take the largest chunk. The investor’s top three picks for the second quarter are T-Mobile US Inc (NYSE:TMUS), Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO).

Disclosure: none