Pickering Energy Partners launches oil and gas investment banking unit

Perella Weinberg Partners

01/09/2023 12:00

By David French
       Sept 1 (Reuters) - Pickering Energy Partners (PEP) is
launching a financial advisory unit for oil and gas dealmaking,
the investment firm said on Friday, doubling down on traditional
fossil fuels as some banks are becoming wary about the industry
and ramping up their bets on clean energy.
    The launch of the investment banking unit marks a return to
oil and gas advisory services for Dan Pickering, the veteran
energy financier who helped form Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co, an
energy boutique bank that was acquired by Perella Weinberg
Partners  PWP.O  in 2016.
    The new seven-member unit will be spearheaded by two former
Barclays Plc  BARC.L  dealmakers, Jason Kivett and Robyn
Underwood, and offer services including mergers & acquisitions
advisory and capital markets issuance.
    Houston-based PEP has an existing investment banking unit
that focuses solely on energy transition, while the firm's other
offerings include equity research, investment funds, and
consulting services.
    The current iteration of PEP was spun out of Perella
Weinberg in 2019, and has since deployed more than $16 billion
in capital across the energy industry, as per its website. All
non-compete agreements between the two firms have now expired,
enabling Pickering to pursue oil and gas advisory work.
    Some banks in recent years have attempted to transition away
from oil and gas, and place greater focus on dealmaking in the
renewables industry, responding to the growth of green energy
but also pressure from shareholders and regulators wary of
fossil fuels and their role in causing climate change.
    Banks including BNP Paribas  BNPP.PA , Bank of Montreal
 BMO.TO  and Bank of Nova Scotia  BNS.TO  have pulled back from
oil and gas dealmaking over the past few years. More recently,
Credit Suisse, once among the most active banks in the energy
sector, shuttered its Houston office after being taken over by
UBS Group AG  UBSG.S .
    To be sure, many traditional lenders continue to advise the
world's biggest oil and gas companies, earning lucrative fees
for their efforts across a host of services.
    This includes M&A, with dealmaking involving U.S. upstream
companies at robust levels so far this year, as publicly-listed
producers seek to add scale and inventory through mergers with
rivals, and acquisitions of privately-held companies.
    "This is a great time to be pushing more chips onto the
table in the energy market, and that's what we're doing," 
Pickering told Reuters, adding his firm's investment banking arm
plans to double headcount over the next two to four years.
    

 (Reporting by David French in New York; Editing by Anirban Sen
and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
 ((davidj.french@thomsonreuters.com;))