TPH 2025 by 2017

Left to right: Bobby Tudor, chairman of the new TPH and a member of the executive committee of PWP; Maynard Holt, CEO of the new TPH; and Dan Pickering, president and chief investment officer of the energy asset management business. Photo by Syvester Garza.

Under the new leadership, Joseph Perella will serve as chairman, Robert Steel will be CEO, and Peter Weinberg is head of the advisory practice. Tarek Abdel-Meguid and Aaron Hood will be co-heads of asset management, and Alexandra Pruner, previously CFO of TPH, will serve as CFO of the combined firm.

Bobby Tudor, previously chairman and CEO of TPH, will become chairman of the new TPH and will join the executive committee of the new PWP. Maynard Holt, TPH co-president and co-head of investment banking, will become CEO of the new TPH. Dan Pickering, co-president and head of TPH asset management, will become president and chief investment officer of the energy asset management business and will join the leadership of the combined asset management business.

Robert K. Steel, CEO of Perella Weinberg Partners, said in a statement, "The addition of TPH's premier energy capabilities and market presence presents significant opportunities for immediate and long-term growth in service to our clients. We recognize the preeminent role that TPH has built as an energy banker in North America, the respect it has earned in the industry, and its leadership and strong voice in Houston. This combination will enable us together to build further on the great achievements of TPH. We believe TPH's strong suite of asset management strategies and solutions are poised to benefit from recovery in the energy market and well-suited to drive further growth and value for investors. The combination also adds TPH's securities business, renowned for its deep domain research and thought-leadership, which will strengthen our ability to provide industry knowledge. We are excited to work together to better serve our clients."

"TPH will continue as it is today – fast moving, knowledgeable, creative, and specialized," added Steel. "With deep roots in Texas and the energy industry, we are dedicated to furthering TPH's strong and distinctive commitment to Houston, the energy capital of the world."

Bobby Tudor, TPH's chairman and CEO, commented, "Perella Weinberg Partners has a terrific reputation as a trusted advisor to executives at the world's leading corporations and a culture of superior client service. We believe our clients and employees will benefit meaningfully from a TPH with broader global reach, expertise in new areas, and greater access to capital. Our longstanding personal and professional relationships with PWP's leadership team give us great confidence that the two firms will be even better together. We look forward to partnering with [PWP] and are eager to capitalize on the opportunities this combination presents to better serve both firms' clients."

Joseph R. Perella, chairman of Perella Weinberg Partners, added, "In our 11th year, we continue to grow and are having one of the best years for our franchise. In the advisory business, we continue to work with some of the largest, most admired companies around the world on complex assignments where trust and experience matter most. In asset management, we have grown AUM more than 20% this year, and interest in our firm on the part of investment managers has never been greater. In combination with TPH's strong year and continued outstanding performance, this transaction promises to extend the momentum and positions us well for the years ahead."

OGFJ recently spoke with Maynard Holt, who will become CEO of the new TPH, about the implications of the merger.

"One thing I'll share with everyone is that the culture here at TPH has been great," said Holt. "The creativity has been great. The machine we built has served our clients well. It's worked. But there has been one big issue. We just have not had the growth capital we needed to expand. Our firm has never had a problem generating ideas. TPH is idea-rich, but we have had a problem implementing those ideas because of the lack of growth capital. So by combining the two firms, it opens up the prospect of building the business at a faster pace. We can deliver TPH 2025 in 2017."

Asked to detail some of the combined company's advantages for TPH and its clients, Holt mentioned three main points:

Perella Weinberg has a large restructuring group that is highly capable. Restructuring projects are big and complicated and also very profitable. The old TPH did not have a restructuring business and probably would not have invested in one because by the time the company had built one, the market would have recovered. So the addition of the restructuring group was an important component of the deal.

PW also has a major Middle East presence with its two offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and 10 people on the ground. Holt adds that the people who run those offices have been in the Middle East for 30 years and have formed relationships with important players there. This opens up future possibilities for TPH as well.

Finally, Holt emphasized that a critical factor in getting the deal done was that he and Bobby Tudor had long-standing relationships with Perella Weinberg principals, including Peter Weinberg, whom they had worked with previously at Goldman Sachs. This connection created a certain level of trust on both sides that was crucial in negotiating the deal, especially since TPH wanted a certain level of independence and didn't want their organization and their culture to be swallowed up by the larger firm. In the end, both sides expect to benefit from the other's experience.

Holt elaborated on how the synergies between the two companies might work: "As a single sector specialist, we developed a lot of methods that are really useful to us and possibly to them. Perella Weinberg is a financial specialist in multiple sectors. Now they do have a health-care business, and I think some of what we do will get exported their way. And we may expand our research and trading component into health care, which will be mutually beneficial."

TPH has advised on more than $175 billion of advisory engagements in the upstream, infrastructure, and oilfield service energy sectors and participated in over $75 billion of capital markets transactions across those sectors, with a particular focus on initial public offerings.

Some of the firm's notable successes include:

• More than 40 deals in the Permian Basin totaling approximately $40 billion, including Encana's $7.1 billion purchase of Athlon
• Transaction leadership in the newly emerging Delaware Basin, including WPX's $2.75 billion acquisition of RKI and the recent sale of Centennial for $1.575 billion
• A major Bakken effort – 13 deals totaling approximately $18 billion, including Statoil's $4.7 billion purchase of Brigham
• Highly active Uinta, Powder River, and DJ basins effort spearheaded through the firm's Denver office, including Noble's recent $550 million DJ divestiture
• A focus on greater Appalachia, Eagle Ford, and the Mid-Continent with 31 transactions totaling $25.2 billion, including Felix's $1.9 billion sale to Devon
• 90 corporate M&A deals, including, in the utility space, Cleco's sale to a private equity consortium led by Macquarie and, in oilfield services, the merger of C&J Energy Services with Nabors' completion and production business
• Special committee practice, including the recent Plains All American Pipeline MLP simplification transaction for $7.2 billion, and El Paso Pipeline Partners' $10.8 billion sale to Kinder Morgan
• A well-regarded capital markets team involved in 162 underwritings raising more than $75 billion in proceeds, including Extraction Oil & Gas's IPO and RSP Permian's follow-on offering to support the acquisition of Silver Hill
• A dominant player in cross-border energy joint ventures with key roles in many of the more prominent transactions, including CNOOC/Chesapeake and Sinochem/Pioneer
• A newly established 10-person office in Calgary

Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Vinson & Elkins LLP provided legal counsel to PWP and TPH, respectively. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the deal is expected to close by the end of the year. The combined company will employ more than 650 people.