Alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has added a six-person international energy investment team to its growing energy platform, expanding the firm’s ability to invest in a full range of energy assets around the world.
Marcel van Poecke, an energy investor, will lead the effort, collaborating with Carlyle’s established investment teams. Van Poecke and the international energy team begin their duties in early May.
Carlyle chairman Daniel A D’Aniello (pictured) says: “Marcel and his team expand and complement our broad-based energy investment offering. Through organic growth and strategic partnerships we have created an energy platform that can invest in energy assets located anywhere in the world.”
Van Poecke says: “This is a remarkable opportunity to combine my team’s international oil and gas investing experience – in particular in Europe and Africa – with Carlyle’s established energy platform. With global energy demands inexorably on the rise we believe we are well positioned to invest and create value for Carlyle’s investors.”
The new international energy team will focus on oil and gas exploration and production (E&P), midstream, oil field services (OFS) and refining and marketing (R&M) in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia.
The team complements Carlyle’s energy investments (USD28bn in AUM), which includes a strategic partnership with NGP Energy Capital Management (E&P investing in North America); energy mezzanine financing; energy infrastructure and power generation (Cogentrix); commodities (Vermillion); and the firm’s proven buyout capabilities in transactions such as Philadelphia Energy Solutions and Kinder Morgan.
Van Poecke has a long-standing relationship with Carlyle having run Petroplus, a European-based oil refining and marketing business, during Carlyle’s ownership from 2005 to 2007. Following his departure from Petroplus in late 2007, van Poecke and his team made successful investments across the energy value chain, including Oranje-Nassau Energie (E&P Europe/Africa) and Discover Exploration (E&P Africa).
The team joining van Poecke includes:
• Paddy Spink, operating executive – 35 years’ upstream experience in Africa, Latin America and Europe;
• Joost Droege, managing director – 25 years’ downstream experience primarily in Europe;
• Joao Saraiva e Silva, managing director – who has been in the industry for over 14 years both in African and European upstream/downstream operations.
