Growth and exit exercise North Sea private equity minds

The UK and Norway upstream sectors have benefitted from a rush of private equity cash, but the key question is what next?

PE investment has boosted the coffers of more than a dozen firms active in UK and Norwegian waters over the past few years. The industry is now asking how the newcomers will add value and how they will exit.  On the first, those less convinced by the utility of PE investment on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) and UK continental shelf (UKCS) mutter darkly that the rationale is simply a bet on buying at a low oil price and selling high, and in the meantime sweating ageing assets. Defenders argue that, if PE had not provided the capital, it is unclear from where other sources of investment would have come.  One analyst describes trying to sell an upside story from manifestly ageing portfo