Is a Major Fund Doubling Down on ProPetro a Contrarian Bet—or a Sign Something's Shifting?

Question

VR Advisory Services just made a bold move: the firm dropped $12.3 million into ProPetro (NYSE: PUMP) in Q3, bringing its total position to nearly 3.7 million shares worth $19.3 million. For a fund managing $412.4 million across US equities, this represented roughly 4.7% of their entire portfolio—a serious conviction play on an oilfield services company most investors have written off.

A Quarter Million Dollar Revenue Run Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

Here’s where ProPetro’s Q3 actually gets interesting. Yes, revenue dipped 10% to $294 million, and adjusted EBITDA fell to $35 million—the kind of numbers that usually trigger sell-offs. But the company’s traditional completions business still squeezed out $25 million in free cash flow, and management closed the quarter sitting on $158 million in liquidity.

That’s the play VR Advisory is making: ProPetro isn’t collapsing—it’s grinding through a cycle while building something new.

The Real Story: PROPWR Is Becoming Real

The hidden gem inside ProPetro is its power business, PROPWR. While the core pressure pumping and well completion services remain under margin pressure, PROPWR locked in over 150 megawatts of contracted capacity in Q3 alone. Management now expects to exceed 220 MW by year-end, with sights set on hitting 1 gigawatt by 2030.

That’s not theoretical. To fund this expansion without crushing the balance sheet, the company just secured a $350 million lease facility—fresh capital designated specifically for scaling the power platform.

The Contrarian Thesis Takes Shape

ProPetro shares have rallied 22% over the past year, crushing the S&P 500’s 13% gain. Yet the stock sits at $10.38 with a $1.1 billion market cap—still fractional compared to its historical peaks. VR Advisory’s increased stake suggests the fund believes the durability equation has changed: a cash-generating completions core that stays positive through downturns, combined with a high-growth power platform that could deliver structural upside.

The risk is clear—hydraulic fracturing cycles are brutal, and capital-intensive transitions have killed energy companies before. But for long-term believers, the risk-reward is starting to look less like a value trap and more like a calculated bet that ProPetro’s two businesses can coexist profitably over the next commodity downturn.