Black gold

01 June 2008

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The oil & gas sector seems to be the winning segment in the turbulent financial markets of late. As oil prices continues to soar, more and more buyout houses are turning their heads to the industry. In April, 25% of all global buyouts were for companies operating in this sector, representing nearly 10% of all private equity transactions by value in the same period

The industry has been characterised by private equity sector specialists like First Reserve, but more generalist firms have started to invest here as well. For instance, just in May, Candover led a consortium that completed a £1.6bn take-private of Expro, an oil & gas distribution company.

Nordic GPs have a long history in investing in the sector, especially Norwegian venture and buyout houses, which is no surprise since Norway is one of the biggest oil exporters in the world. Stavanger, in the south of Norway, has for decades been one of the primary oil clusters in the world. According to our in-house research, since 2002, 88% of Nordic investments in the sector were in Norwegian companies, with half of all European oil & gas investments completed here in 2006. So if the oil price continues to rocket, and some industry experts are predicting $150 per barrel in the near future, we can expect some world class oil & gas exits in the Nordics on the horizon. With a global shortage of 'black gold', this seems like a plausible scenario.

In addition, our proprietary database, Private Equity Insight, has launched a performance data module in collaboration with CEPRES. The tool enables users to measure performance at the portfolio company level rather than the fund level. I urge everyone to try a demo on the performance data on www.privateequityinsight.com.

Yours sincerely,

Linn Ronning

Nordic Editor, unquote"

Tel: +44 20 7484 9824

linn.roenning@incisivemedia.com