Reuters Summit-Martin Currie resources fund eyes utilities

* Commodity-sensitive utilities seen offering value

* Fund buying gold miners, oil and gas E&P stocks

LONDON, March 17 (Reuters) - Utilities sensitive to fluctuations in commodities prices could provide interesting stock picking opportunities in the months ahead, Chris Butler, manager of the Martin Currie GF Global Resources Fund, said.

Butler said that having added positions in gold miners and in oil and gas exploration and production stocks over recent months, the fund is now eyeing utilities.

"Utilities as a sector has underperformed the market year to date; that's extraordinary in a falling market," Butler told Reuters.

Butler said the fund is looking at opportunities in commodity price-sensitive utilities as there may be a discrepancy between what they and energy stocks are discounting in terms of the prospects for commodities prices.

The Martin Currie Global Resources Fund has lost 49.01 percent of its value in the year to end-February but it has outperformed the Lipper Equity Sector Natural Resources peer group during that period.

The fund, which had assets under management of $49 million at the end of February, has won the Lipper award for best global resources fund in 2008 over three years.

Butler is keen on exploration and production oil and gas companies such as Anadarko (APC.N) and Hess (HES.N), which has been one of the fund's strongest contributors in 2009.

In both cases the shares had been discounting oil at $40 per barrel in perpetuity, Butler said.

"We do see opportunities in upstream producers with strong assets and with further potential upside from exploration, provided they have capital on the balance sheet," Butler said.

"The market has not been efficient in sorting out those stronger survivors from weaker peers," Butler said.

The fund has also bought shares in undervalued gold miners Sino Gold (SGX.AX), Gold Fields (GFIJ.J) and Newcrest Mining (NCM.AX).

Butler said the fund bought shares in Sino Gold in the latter half of last year at 7 times forward earnings.

He said Newcrest shares were valued at about equal to net present value, which ignored the fact that the company's gold reserves rose 20 percent last year, while shares in Gold Fields were acquired at about 60 percent of net present value.

The fund has also taken a position in Monsanto (MON.N), a food biotechnology company, which has been heavily derated but has a strong product pipeline and stands to gain from price increases, he added.

The fund has also bought shares in agricultural equipment producer Agco AG.N which Butler said trades at about half its fundamental level. (To read Reuters Global Investing Blog click here; for the MacroScope Blog click on blogs.reuters.com/macroscope; for Hedge Fund Hub click on blogs.reuters.com/hedgehub)