BGF backs Task Geoscience and Fronterra merger

The businesses will merge to form a global geoscience consultancy, in which BGF will hold a minority stake. The capital injection will be used to support the merger and the newly-formed group's expansion plans, including new hires.

This is BGF's eighth growth capital investment in 2014 and its fifth in Scotland. At the start of March, BGF invested £5m in Spex Group, an Aberdeen-based oil and gas services provider.

Company
Task Geoscience was founded in 2001, while Fronterra was founded in 2003. Both are geological consultancies providing data processing, borehole interpretation and reservoir modelling services to the oil and gas industry. The combination of the two companies' businesses has created a consultancy with 10 offices across North and South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

Task-Fronterra's proprietary software allows clients to analyse and visualise surfaces within and between wells. Inter-well analysis enables the identification of sub-seismic faults and fault systems, which can improve certainty in enhanced oil recovery and reduce the risk of poor well positioning with respect to faults, according to the company.

The Task-Fronterra team comprises more than 80 geoscientists.

People
Lawrence Bourke will become CEO of the Task-Fronterra Group and is the founder and CEO of Task Geosciences. Mike Sibson is an investment director at BGF and will take a seat on the company board. The BGF team that worked on the deal also comprised senior investment manager Richard Pugh and investment associate David Gammie, supported by Scottish regional director Simon Munro.

Advisers
Equity – Blackwood Partners (Legal); Eagle Orchid (Financial due diligence).
Company – Burness Paull (Legal); Boyar Millar (Legal); Anderson Anderson Brown (Corporate finance); Edinfort (Corporate finance).

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• Topics
• UK / Ireland
• Industrials
• Expansion
• BGF (Business Growth Fund)