TWO business ventures currently taking shape in the north-east could see some well-known entrepreneurs make a return to the limelight.
Both projects are still very much under wraps and the people involved have refused to comment.
However, Companies House records show Gaelic Energy and Granite Aviation could be about to burst on to the local business scene.
Gaelic Energy, registered at the offices of law firm Maclay Murray and Spens at 66 Queens Road, Aberdeen, was incorporated in January 2010 but recently appointed brothers Tommy and Ciaran Dreelan as directors.
The Dreelans, together with brothers Sean and Mike, founded Portlethen-based oil service company Qserv in 2001 and seven years later sold it to Norwegian group Aker Solutions.
The deal, announced in July 2008, netted the four brothers nearly £100million.
They continued in their roles with Qserv as it expanded worldwide, but left the company earlier this year.
Aker’s acquisition of Qserv was the second big-money deal involving the Dreelans in 10 years. PSL was sold by Tommy, Sean and Mike for £45.5million in 1998.
Ciaran was entrepreneur of the year at the 2010 Grampian Awards for Business Enterprise, while Tommy was inducted into the Entrepreneurial Exchange’s prestigious hall of fame two years before.
When they left Qserv, the Dreelans said they had “no idea what the future held for them”.
Tommy and Ciaran are thought to be trying to raise equity for an energy-related venture.
Speculation in Aberdeen has linked the project to two other familiar figures: Alasdair Locke, former executive chairman of Aberdeen-based energy service company Abbot Group and Dave Blackwood, a senior adviser with corporate-finance firm Lexicon Partners and a former head of BP’s Aberdeen-based North Sea operation.
Meanwhile, Granite City Aviation, incorporated in July, is listed at Companies House as having two directors.
One of them is former airline boss Ian Woodley, whose name – with that of his successor at the helm of Aberdeen-based Business Air, Graeme Ross – has been linked recently to the sale of BMI’s Granite City-based regional arm.
In 1987, Mr Woodley and Mr Ross led a management buyout of aircraft charter broker Business Air Centre and developed it into Business Air.
The airline was later swallowed up by British Midland, consigning the Business Air name to history.