November 15, 2024

DealBook: Ex-BP Chief’s Investment Firm Files for I.P.O.

7:29 p.m. | Updated

Tony Hayward, a former BP chief executive, aims to raise £1 billion, roughly $1.6 billion, in an initial public offering of the energy investment company Vallares, which he co-founded.

Vallares plans to use the proceeds to make a large acquisition in the oil and natural gas industry, the company said in a statement filed on Thursday with the London Stock Exchange.

Mr. Hayward set up Vallares with the financier Nathaniel Rothschild and Julian Metherell, a senior Goldman Sachs banker, after resigning from BP last year in the aftermath of the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We will have the cash, access to funds and the capability to unlock value where the current owners have neither the capital nor technical expertise to develop the assets,” Mr. Hayward said.

Vallares said it planned to sell shares at £10 apiece on the London exchange and to allocate shares on or around June 20. The company would be structured like Mr. Rothschild’s investment vehicle Vallar, which raised £707 million in an initial share sale last July to buy a coal business in Indonesia.

Vallares said it intended to buy a company or assets worth £3 billion to £8 billion, focusing on areas like Russia, the Middle East, Africa, Asia or Latin America.

The share sale is being managed by Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Cazenove and Evolution Securities.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b3de3e669f41286a883b575c00b7a5b6