One of the founders of an international venture launched yesterday said it was ideally positioned to become the premier advisory and investment vehicle in the global oil and gas industry.
But in a sign the UK continental shelf is not widely seen as a particularly lucrative market in global terms, energy investor Jeffrey Waterous said Renaissance JMW Energy was unlikely to have much interest in the North Sea.
He said the firm’s main focus would be on emerging and frontier energy markets, such as Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Asia. Renaissance will also advise clients on transactions globally and identify opportunities for corporate restructuring.
It is targeting private and national energy companies, governments and institutional and private investors.
The venture combines investment-bank expertise in emerging markets – from Russia’s Renaissance Capital – with the experience of Mr Waterous, who built Waterous and Co from scratch into a major investor in the upstream oil and gas sector. He sold the business in 2005 to Bank of Nova Scotia, which renamed it Scotia Waterous.
In the three years before the sale, 24 of the 30 largest private-sector oil and gas companies in the world were clients and the company brokered deals worth billions of pounds.
Renaissance JMW Energy has its headquarters in Bahrain, with other offices in Istanbul, Delhi and Casablanca. There are plans for another site, in Buenos Aires, early next year.
The firm can also draw support from specialists in markets as diverse as Nigeria, India, Turkey, the Gulf and Morocco, plus Renaissance Capital offices in London, New York, Moscow, Almaty in Kazakhstan and throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Mr Waterous told the Press and Journal the new firm was likely to see strong demand for its services amid growing consolidation and merger and acquisition activity in global oil and gas.
He added that other business would come from firms moving to realign their portfolios and new players entering the market.
Recommended for you
