The State of M&A in The Energy Industry 

The FENG will bring together insights from the Federal Reserve Bank & leading experts in energy and finance to discuss the unfolding dynamics and the opportunities they present as we manage and operate our various assets and portfolios. 

Melinda Yee | Partner Oil & Gas Mergers & Aquisitions Transactions Services | www.Deloitte.com 

Melinda, a partner with Deloitte & Touche LLP, leads Deloitte’s Oil & Gas Merger & Acquisition Transaction Services practice. She has more than 20 years of public accounting experience with Deloitte, serving both corporate and private equity clients. Melinda has led numerous M&A teams, both foreign and domestic, on various acquisition and divestiture transactions of varying sizes and complexities, and has experience across the energy spectrum.
 

J.P. Hanson | Managing Director | Head of Oil & Gas Group | Houlihan Lokey | www.HL.com  

Mr. Hanson is Head of Houlihan Lokey’s Oil & Gas Group and Co-Head of the Energy Group. He is based in the firm’s Houston office.

During his career, Mr. Hanson has worked on numerous financing, M&A, A&D, valuation, and financial recapitalization/restructuring engagements. In addition to domestic U.S. transactions, he has advised corporations, boards of directors, management teams, and stakeholders in multiple global and cross-border transactions regarding the structuring, negotiation, and implementation of a wide variety of corporate finance transactions in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry.

Before joining Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Hanson was a Manager of Alternative Lending at Commonfund Mortgage Corp., where he structured whole loan and portfolio fundings, sales, and securitizations involving a variety of asset-backed lending transactions. Earlier in his career, he held a similar position at MoneyLine Lending. Mr. Hanson began his career in finance trading fixed income securities at NNJ, a private family wealth fund formerly based in San Francisco.

Mr. Hanson has been an author, co-author, and speaker on various topics, including trends in E&P finance and valuation, and financing markets and valuation dynamics in a distressed environment, among others. He previously served on the board of directors of Bennu Oil & Gas, LLC, an entity established for the purpose of acquiring and operating oil and gas properties in the Gulf of Mexico.

Mr. Hanson earned a dual B.A. degree, cum laude, in Italian and International Finance from Brigham Young University and an MBA with a concentration in Finance from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

Jesse Thompson | Senior Business Economist | Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas | www.dallasfed.org 

Jesse Thompson serves as senior business economist at the Houston Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Thompson, who joined the Bank in 2010, performs research and analysis on issues affecting the Houston and Gulf Coast economy. In particular, he studies issues surrounding area hydrocarbon industries. He also collects information for the Dallas Fed’s Beige Book summary of current economic conditions. He is author of the monthly Energy Indicators, the Houston Economic Indicators, and contributes to the quarterly publication Southwest Economy.

Thompson earned an MA in economics, with emphasis on empirical microeconomics, and BA in philosophy and economics from the University of Houston.

Steve Kennedy | Executive Vice President | Head | Energy Banking | Amegy Bank.

Steve Kennedy is Executive Vice President & Head of Energy Banking at Amegy Bank.  Mr. Kennedy has 36years of energy banking experience, beginning with MBank/Bank One (Dallas) in 1986 and continuing in 1992 with Wells Fargo (Dallas).  He joined Amegy Bank (Houston) in 1997 to form its Energy Group.

Since its formation in 1997, Amegy’s Energy Grouphas made and currently maintains over $4.7 billion in energy loan commitments to over 300 E&P, Midstream and Oilfield Service companies.   The twenty-fourmember Energy Group maintains offices in Houston, Dallas and Denver.  

Prior to beginning his career in energy banking, Mr. Kennedy worked in the field operations of an independent oilfield service company and was Managing Partner of Kennedy & Bachelor Oil Company, a third-generation family-owned business. He graduated from Texas A & M University in 1984with a Bachelor of Science in petroleum engineering and earned a Masters in Business Administration from Baylor University in 1986.

He is a member of the IPAA, SPE, TIPRO, Houston Producers Forum, Houston Energy Finance Group andis a two-time past Director of the Petroleum Club of Houston.  He has authored several articles on energy matters, including one regarding energy derivatives published in the October 2005 edition of “Oil & Gas Financial Journal”.
 

Pedro Blanco | Managing Partner | Entoro Capital 

Pedro Blanco is a Senior Investments & Finance Executive offering more than 20years of quantifiable achievements in engineering, corporate finance, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, leveraged buy-outs, recapitalizations, and joint venture partnerships. Also, an avid entrepreneur.

Mr. Blanco has led acquisitional growth strategies and long-term portfolio expansion initiatives in the US, Latin America, and the African region. With a deep understanding of the Global Energy Industry, Commodities, Real Estate, Logistics and Technology, Acting as a key contributor in all aspects of business partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, and pioneering companies from the ground-up.

Mr. Blanco was founder and Executive President of full-service broker dealers internationally and the USA, which were sold to investors after successfully growing those businesses. Recently he has led the creation of various products and ventures within the financial industry in the United States and abroad and has held the FINRA 7, 24 and NASAA series 65 securities licenses.

In his corporate professional experience Mr. Blanco has contributed to the international development of multinational companies such as Schlumberger, Thomas De La Rue, Dow Chemical, Enron Corporation, Citgo Petroleum, etc. His responsibilities ranged from highly technical areas of Energy and Manufacturing, to risk management, financial analysis, restructuring, business development, management consulting, M&A, investment management and venture capital.

Mr. Blanco holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Corporate Finance and Corporate Strategy from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a Bachelor’s Degree with honors in Geophysics Engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar.

Master of Ceremonies 

Mark Hamzat O. Erogbogbo | Chairman | Energy & Natural Resources