Clients of asset manager Maven Capital Partners (MCP) are hungry to invest in the offshore energy sector and its supply chain, the firm’s Aberdeen-based investment director said yesterday.
Ewan MacKinnon hailed a healthy appetite among existing and potential new backers for the investment opportunites expected to start flowing during 2018.
Mr MacKinnon said low interest rates, pension caps and a slow but definite pick-up in the North Sea oil and gas industry were making such investments attractive again.
“We have more demand (to invest) than there is supply (of opportunities) at the moment,” he said, adding Maven was looking at a couple of early-stage companies which fitted the bill.”
“I have a meeting next week with one of them which looks quite exciting,” he revealed.
Maven’s office in Queen’s Terrace, Aberdeen, currently has 11 mostly oil and gas-focused companies in its investment portfolio.
The firm’s approach is geared to longer-term investments, meaning there is no pressure to exit a business after only a few years, Mr MacKinnon said, adding: “We are not constrained by time – some people call it patient capital.
“We will continue to support a business until such time as the management team they want to sell.”
Maven offers investors the chance to gain exposure to a wide range of UK private companies through the tax-efficient structure of one of its six venture capital trusts or as an “investor partner”.
Mr MacKinnon joined from Johnston Carmichael soon after the firm was created from a management buyout, in 2009, of the private-equity team at fund manager Aberdeen Asset Management.
The recent oil and gas downturn has meant a dearth of investment opportunities in the sector but Maven portfolio companies did well last year and are making money again, Mr MacKinnon said.
A recent recovery in oil prices, if sustained, is expected to create a flood of new investment opportunites, with Maven typically targeting early stage companies turning over between £5million and £15million a year, generating profits of about £1million.
“For us, it’s all about helping to develop those businesses, Mr MacKinnon said, adding his biggest success story to date was Maven’s two year investment in ICR Integrity, a group of energy service companies focused on asset integrity, corrosion and repairs.
“They went from strength to strength and ended up needing bigger much pockets than we could ever provide to support their growth plans,” he said.
Maven’s recent oil and gas investment drought was broken in December 2016, when it revealed it had ploughed £1.1million into Aberdeen-based offshore technology company Whiterock Group
