In a lengthy article titled: A Lion in the North Sea: The Battle
for Chevron Netherlands, Paddy Agbolade Adenuga, the second son of Africa’s
telecom mogul, Dr. Mike Adenuga, narrated how he almost single-handedly,
without the support of his influential father.
The full article:
It was October 2013, two years had passed since I had left the
family business in Lagos, Nigeria and moved to London, England to start my own
oil trading company. My time in the family business, as a director in the
telecoms division and upstream oil & gas company was challenging to say the
least but engaging and ultimately rewarding. However, I have never felt
comfortable with sitting back and getting a golden pass through life. Whilst
the easy thing to do was to be a “good boy and good son” and enjoy all the
luxuries of being in a family business – I decided that striking it out on my
own once again was the best course of action.
I’ve always loved the oil & gas business, like many other
Nigerians. However, what I love about the business, particularly the exploration
and production (upstream) side, was the mixture of strategy, operational
capability, technical know-how, politics and business acumen which all had to
be married with a gambling spirit and sheer luck to be successful. In my
decision to move to London, I decided I would only be in the oil & gas
business as long as it didn’t pose a direct conflict to the family’s interests.
There is striking it out on your own and then there is just being plain
foolish. Luckily for me, I had stopped being foolish by then.
The modus operandi of my oil trading business was simple. I kept
an office in Lagos with a small team of five to run operations and logistics. I
converted one of the bedrooms in my townhouse in London into a study. My team
in Lagos under my guidance would get oil trading contracts and I, sitting in
London, would either market these contracts to the global oil trading houses to
execute in Nigeria on a joint venture (JV) basis or in some instances, I would
find the capital to execute the contract from end to end. This formula proved
effective and it was good enough to pay my bills and afford me an above modest
lifestyle.
One of the traits I took from my parents is that I am highly
ambitious and find it hard to sit still. There always has to be a new conquest,
a new mountain to climb, or, as is the case most times, a new business to go
after. Oil trading was my day job but was never exciting to me except for when
I got paid. After days and weeks in London plotting my next move, I came up
with an idea and a plan. In the world of upstream oil & gas, especially in
Africa, companies that were operators, actively producing oil & gas in
commercial quantities that wanted to invest or participate in the oil business
were the darlings of the industry. They were like the prettiest girl in high
school and every guy wanted her to come to the prom with him.
Most of the oil producing nations in sub-Saharan Africa such as
Nigeria, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea would always require any investor into
oil & gas assets in their country to either be an oil & gas operator
with production on stream or be partnered with an operator, deemed a “technical
partner”. This logic makes sense. If you are going to buy prized national
assets, you should have the know how to develop and operate them or at least be
partnered with an entity that does. I decided that I was going to use a Trojan
Horse strategy. I had read ancient Greek literature when I’d attended military
academy in Texas and it served as inspiration. I would acquire an oil & gas
operating company in Europe (the Trojan Horse), where the political barriers
and costs to entry in comparison to Africa would be significantly lower. I
would then use this newly acquired company, which would now be of Afro-European
in heritage, to become a technical partner to many local and international
investors in the upstream oil & gas business in Africa. This company would
be the first of its kind and likely the most sought-after oil & gas company
on the African continent because of its unique DNA and ownership. After
thinking of this idea, I took myself out to a bar a few blocks from my house
and ordered myself a nice strong drink. I felt like a genius.
I registered a new upstream oil & gas investment company
offshore and called it, The Catalan Corporation. The name didn’t really have a
meaning, it just sounded nice and had a confident, stately demeanour to it. To
keep costs at a minimum, I decided to put together an advisory board that
consisted of Vance Querio, the COO of Addax Petroleum at the time and an
industry professional and my mentor (who will remain nameless for good reason),
one of Africa’s biggest business giants. Vance was all too happy to join and
signed on quickly. I called my mentor and before signing on, he wanted a face
to face meeting for me to explain my plan and ambitions for Catalan. He asked
me to meet him in the early spring of 2014 at a health spa in a small Swiss
village outside of Zurich. I have to admit the drive from Zurich to this little
village tucked within the Swiss mountains still remains one of the most
beautiful sights I have ever seen. The spring sun had begun to melt the snow on
the mountains and in the distance; you could see the melting snow turn into
giant waterfalls pouring off the mountains. It was like an oil painting come to
life.
I eventually met with my mentor and after explaining my idea to
him and that him being on my advisory board would not only give my burgeoning
company credibility but help us raise cash, he agreed in totality and went
further to tell me that I should tell anyone and everyone that he was not only
on board but was going to give our company his full support. We drank some tea
together and the next morning I was off back to London. My little plan for
Africa oil & gas was coming together, finally put into action by two
African men in a Swiss village. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
On the plane flying back to London from Zurich, even though I
had just gotten my mentor on board, I felt that there was someone missing. A
few years prior I was the spearhead of my family’s acquisition drive for OML 30
(this is another whole story in itself), one of Shell Nigeria’s most lucrative
oil blocks that was up for sale, I met a brilliant English banker named Edgar.
Edgar had more than 30 years of oil & gas operations and finance
experience. He was respected by the industry on a global basis and having him
on board would be the final piece in the puzzle, the icing on the cake. I
called Edgar immediately I landed and asked if we could meet for lunch, my treat
as always.
I pitched Catalan to Edgar and how if we pulled this off it
would be the grandest of coups. Edgar was highly intrigued but stated that he
wanted hard cash upfront from the onset. Whilst the others were all too eager
to come on board and make their money via sweat equity or cash incentives when
we had a target company in our sights, Edgar wanted to be paid money and a
substantial amount before putting pen to paper. I was confused by his
behaviour. I told him who the others were that were on Catalan’s advisory board
but he wasn’t having it, either he would be paid his princely sum to attach his
name to Catalan or no deal. I was 29 at the time and was still head-strong and
prideful. How could this guy develop such an attitude? I thought we were friends.
I suppose Edgar knew his value and wasn’t going to mortgage it on a promise of
monies at a later date. As much as he liked my Trojan Horse idea, he just
happened to like money more. I balked at his request in annoyance. I paid for
lunch, told him no way, and stormed off home. This was a big mistake on my part
that would rear its ugly head later.
I appointed two of my most trusted confidants as directors in
Catalan and with that the company was set to go. I designed the logo for
Catalan – a coat of arms with a cross in the middle. I am after all a devout
Catholic and a strong believer in God, so why not have my faith represented on
my company logo? I then called my friend Nicolas Lavrov, a web and graphics
designer and over the course of a week we put together a sleek and polished
company profile which me, my directors and advisory board began emailing out to
interested parties. A few weeks later, I got an email from Richard Kent of
Jeffries. Jeffries are an investment bank that work closely with multi-national
oil companies (the majors) on the acquisition or divestment of oil & gas
assets on a worldwide basis. Richard had gotten a copy of my company profile
and wanted to have a meeting. I wore one of my finest suits and hopped into a
taxi to his offices in London City.
Richard and I talked extensively about my background and my
ambitions for Catalan. I explained to him the type of company we were looking
to acquire, ideally an oil & gas company in Europe, preferably operating
out of the North Sea with a strong daily production and enough reserves to
warrant further investment in development. I also told Richard how much we
would be ready to spend for the first acquisition – between USD 50 million and
USD 100 million. We would finance our acquisition via reserve based lending and
would likely raise cash equity of thirty percent of our purchase price with a
Bank raising debt of seventy percent to help the balance of the purchase price.
I had described the “goldilocks” company Catalan needed to acquire. With that
said, Richard told me to give him some time to find the best deal for Catalan.
A few weeks later Richard called me, “I have the perfect deal
for you Paddy!” US oil giant, Chevron, had decided to sell their entire
upstream, exploration and production business in the Netherlands and had
appointed Jeffries to manage a bid process for the sale of Chevron Netherlands.
The sale included their production platforms in the North Sea off the Dutch
coast, their office buildings, around a thousand or so native Dutch staff, and
their crude and gas pipeline evacuation infrastructure. Even the Chevron coffee
and tea mugs were part of the sale. Richard was right, this deal was perfect
and the ideal Trojan Horse with which to enter the Africa oil & gas terrain
with from Europe. He informed me that this would be a competitive bid against
other companies to acquire Chevron but thought that Catalan and I stood a good
chance. I told him I was interested and that he should send all the necessary
paperwork over. Something within me believed I was going to win this bid and
with that in mind I was going to throw everything at it. If I won this bid, I
thought, there would be stories written about me for a long time to come.
Chevron are by nature, prudently selective with which companies
they invite to bid. So the fact that Catalan was chosen was a big deal to me. I
felt like for once in my 29 years, I wasn’t being judged solely by my last name
but for my skill, merits and ability. I got the first bits of information from
Chevron on their Netherlands assets and I began putting together a team of
hired hands to act as my management team for Catalan’s bid. I appointed Dutch
law firm DeBrauw as my lawyers, Canadian firm Canaccord Genuity as my finance
managers, RPS Energy as my technical managers, and Moore Stephens as my
accountants. I informed Chevron of my management team and they asked for a few
weeks to open the data room and kick off the bid.
Whilst Catalan and its hired management team waited on Chevron,
I decided to be pro-active. From previous my experience with OML 30, not
engaging government regulators enough could prove to be unwise. I decided that
I needed to meet with the government body in the Netherlands responsible for
managing their oil & gas affairs. After all I was a young Nigerian man,
trying to buy prized, national Dutch assets. I, more than anyone, needed to be
ten steps ahead at any given time. My lawyers put me in touch with Jan-Dirk
Bokhoven, the managing director at the time of the Dutch state-owned oil company,
EBN. Jan-Dirk and I spoke on the phone and agreed a date to meet at EBN’s head
office in Utrecht, a one-hour drive or so outside of Amsterdam.
I had never been to the Netherlands before. I took the first
flight from London to Amsterdam and arrived a little after 7am. The hotel sent
a car to pick me and on my ride into Amsterdam the most fascinating thing I saw
was that the Dutch rode bicycles everywhere. When parents take their kids to
school, they pop them onto the back of a bike and ride on. I had never seen an
entire city on bicycles. It was like something out of the twilight zone. A few
hours later I changed and drove to Utrecht on a warm and sunny morning. The
ride to Utrecht was stunning. The skies were a picturesque baby blue and there
wasn’t a cloud in sight. On either side of the motorway there were golden
fields of farm land and further beyond, wind turbines spun in synchronicity.
The view was so special to me that I asked the driver to stop on the side of
the motorway so that I could get out and appreciate the scenery for fifteen
minutes or so. The driver thought I was odd.
I finally met Jan-Dirk at his offices with his head of
operations, Thijs. I could see in both their faces, looks of confusion and
reverence at the same time. How could a 29-year-old Nigerian have found himself
in a position to buy Chevron’s business in the Netherlands? I told Jan-Dirk and
Thijs of my intentions and that I took this bid seriously and wanted to make
sure that I did everything right in the eyes of not only Chevron but the Dutch
government. They both assured me that I was on the right track and that if
there was any issue, they would let me know. I spent a few more days in
Amsterdam, met up with a few friends, and enjoyed the Dutch nightlife and
hospitality. I flew back to London.
Chevron finally opened the data room for the bid and provided
all information needed for all companies to put in a bid. I put my team, my
directors, and Vance Querio on the task of reviewing all the documents with a
request that we have a bid review meeting in a few weeks. Tarica Mpinga of
Canaccord Genuity served as the lead of the management team. Tarica called me
that the team was ready to present their findings and proposal on the way
forward. I went over to Canaccord’s offices and for once saw my team assembled
in front of me. Here I was, in my late twenties, in a massive boardroom, with a
management team of fifteen people presenting to me. I felt like I had arrived.
While acquiring Chevron Netherlands was mostly for an Africa oil
& gas play, Catalan had to deal with the reality of the company’s books,
resources, and liabilities. Chevron Netherlands by production was attractive,
producing 9000 boepd broken down into 8000 barrels of gas per day and 1000
barrels of crude. The off-shore production facilities were top class, the gas
reserves were attractive with ample room for development to increase production
numbers, the management team of Chevron Netherlands were the best the industry
could employ, and the crude and gas evacuation infrastructure and sales
contracts were solid. The Catalan management team presented me the bad news.
The oil reserves were seen as weak and having very little production life even
if new wells were drilled. The biggest problem however was the abandonment
liability which had been projected at first glance to be in the USD 300 million
region. This became the thorn in the flesh of entire bid process. Essentially
the Dutch government required all operators to restore their areas of operation
back to how nature intended – which meant all infrastructures, had to be
removed at the end of production. The cost of this is what is termed
“abandonment liability” or “abandex”.
Catalan’s management team felt that
because the abandex was so high, it negated an aggressive bid price and
moreover Catalan would struggle to raise cash to pay for Chevron Netherlands.
Unperturbed, I corralled my management team on a road show. We
would meet with as many Banks, investors, and oil trading companies as possible
to pitch Catalan’s bid and Africa strategy for Chevron Netherlands. The team
and I spent countless hours in meeting after meeting but to no avail. The
abandex amount and weak oil reserves of Chevron Netherlands were too
significant that it blinded people from the Africa strategy entirely.
Alas it was clear that this would have to be a cash deal with no
bank debt or oil trading dollars. Despondent, I called my mentor for a way
forward. We spoke extensively and as I expected, he was the only one that saw
how important Chevron Netherlands would be as a technical partner-operator in
Africa. We agreed that between myself as a small cash contributor, himself, and
a few other investors we could raise cash of USD 50 million as a maximum bid
price. That night I went back to that bar not far from my house and ordered an
even stronger drink. This bid could not slip away from me.
Chevron sent an email to Catalan advising when they expected
bids to be received. The Catalan team once again huddled in Canaccord’s offices
to work on a bid submission document, which would include Catalan’s offer and
bid price. We deliberated for hours and the management team insisted that
because of the high abandex amount that no cash should be offered. Essentially
Catalan would agree to absorb the entire abandex amount and would pay a
notional “$1” for the company. This would be a liability absorbing deal,
allowing Chevron to clean out and move on. The team advised that Catalan put in
this offer but as a way to play hard to get, we would commit to the gas abandex
but stay quiet on the oil abandex. I was convinced at that moment that we would
have the winning bid. The team prepared all the necessary paperwork, which I
signed, and hand delivered to Jeffries offices to the manager of the bid
process. After submitting the bid documents, I went to my church, St. Mary’s. I
always like going to church when there is absolutely no one there. I prayed for
God’s blessings and good graces.
Jeffries and Chevron confirmed they had received Catalan’s bid
and would need two weeks or so to review all bids and come back with an answer.
In the meantime, I gave a break to my management team and spent all my free
time now on my kung fu training with my master, Shifu Heng-Wei. Kung Fu was not
only for my fitness but for my well-being and spiritual balance. It was my
greatest stress-relief. On a Tuesday afternoon, whilst Shifu and I were in the
middle of an intense kung fu session, my phone rang. I knew it was about
Chevron. One of Richard Kent’s deputies was on the line. Chevron had reviewed
my bid and were “confused” on my position in respect to the oil abandex and
wanted a re-submission clarifying Catalan’s position on both oil and gas
abandex. I immediately re-convened my management team at the boardroom and
began debating our response to Chevron. I saw this as a second chance
opportunity from Chevron to submit a more aggressive bid. My management team
argued that I should keep the same bid and state now clearly that Catalan
wanted nothing to do with the oil abandex. I countered that we needed to be
aggressive and should take the entire abandex and offer cash of USD 50 million
so that we could acquire Chevron Netherlands uncontested and plough quickly to
our Africa strategy.
The Catalan management team thought I was crazy. Surely, I was
29 and now undeniably stupid. How could I look at that enormity of an abandex
amount and now want to offer hard-earned cash on top of that? They believed I
was frequenting my local bar too often and having one too many drinks. They
pleaded with me that I follow their proposal. We argued further and eventually
as a compromise, we agreed that we would take all of Chevron Netherlands oil
& gas abandex but would still offer a notional $1 bid price. In
my heart of hearts, I felt that a cash offer was needed to win but my management
team, for which I had paid a respectable amount for their services, had
convinced me otherwise.
They were professionals I thought and they had my best interest
at heart. The team printed out the documents for which I appended my signature
and re-submitted. Again, I went to my church, when there wasn’t a soul in sight
and prayed to God for his guidance and blessings.
Chevron confirmed that they had received Catalan’s revised bid
document and would need another 2 weeks to come back to me on whether we won
the bid or not. One night as I stayed up watching CNN at home, I had another
idea. If I was able to find out whom the other bidders were for Chevron
Netherlands, I could coerce these bidders to drop their respective bids and
join me in a new multi-bidder venture. With this, Chevron would have no choice
but to sell Chevron Netherlands to Catalan and the other bidders in a new joint
venture (JV) company. This was to be my insurance policy in case Catalan’s solo
bid failed.
As I said, I am the underdog here by a country mile; I always had
to be ten steps ahead of everybody else. I arranged a conference call with my
management team and charged them to find out who the other bidders were for
Chevron Netherlands. I also pulled out my diary and began making phone calls.
At this point I didn’t care what the rules were, this was business – either
hunt or be hunted and I believed Catalan led by me, was an apex predator, even
if Chevron was one trillion times bigger than Catalan. Fortune favours the bold
and I fancied this as David versus Goliath.
One by one, Catalan began finding out who the other bidders
were. Mercuria, an oil trading company I had done business were in the running
but then pulled out. Dana Petroleum looked at the assets but were also out of
the running. Tullow Oil was also out of the bid out of the fear of the abandex
costs. I scheduled another call with my team and asked everyone to re-double
their efforts to find active bidders. The clock was ticking and I was keen to
find the other bidders before Chevron replied to my bid. I was too late
however, on a Friday afternoon in early summer of 2014, whilst I was out
drinking rose wine with friends at the Arts Club in London, I got an email from
Chevron. They had rejected Catalan’s bid and had deemed our bid unsuccessful. I
felt like sinking into the ground. I hastily said goodbye to my worried friends
and ran home. I couldn’t believe it. How could Chevron say no to me? This bid
was destined for me to win. I was meant to be the Alexander the Great of Africa
oil & gas and barely into my thirties.
All weekend, I re-traced my steps. I called my management team,
my directors, my advisory board, and my mentor to understand where we went
wrong. Vance Querio told me that it looked like I had fallen in love with Chevron
Netherlands and it was time to walk away. I said no way, I was too deep in love
and I couldn’t turn back now. I made up my mind that I was going to find the
remaining active bidders, coax them into joining me, and leave Chevron with no
choice. I called my management team for a meeting on Monday and they were
soundly reassured that I was mad. The game was up and here I was, trying to
bring back life to Catalan after a deathblow. The show was not over and we were
going to be victorious. I left the meeting with a sense of purpose. That night
I went on a dinner date and bumped into an older friend of mine, Remi. I had
always looked up to Remi. Remi is smart, successful, and highly intelligent. I
felt like him and I were very much the same person and that he was me, just
twenty or so years down the road. Remi asked me what I was up to with work and
why I wasn’t in Lagos running the family business. I coyly changed topics as I
didn’t want any Nigerians knowing what I was up to, certainly no one in “high society”
or the political elite. Even though Remi was a great guy, I couldn’t take the
risk.
Chevron Netherlands was my Trojan Horse and it was on a strictly
need to know basis. We will get back to Remi later.
The next day I called Jan-Dirk of EBN and told him that I was
going to make a USD 50 million re-bid for Chevron Netherlands but this time I
wanted to do so with the other bidders as part of a JV. I was going to use all
the cash I had agreed with my mentor to go for one final strike. Jan-Dirk at
first was unsure that this was possible but when he heard my sense of urgency
and willingness to put down cash, he invited me to back to his offices in
Utrecht and felt there could be a solution. The next morning, I dashed off to
the airport and flew back to Amsterdam. I landed early as I usually do and by
this time I had gotten used to the city being on bicycles. I remember pulling
up to a red light and seeing twin Dutch toddlers on the back of their mother’s
bike waving at me. These Dutch and their bicycles.
I met with Jan-Dirk again and this time he was more forthright
and eager to help out. He then dropped a few bombshells on me. First off, EBN,
the Dutch state oil company, were an active bidder for Chevron Netherlands and
were specifically interested in the oil side. I was shocked. The second
bombshell was that they had put in a joint bid with an indigenous Dutch oil
& gas producer called Oranje-Nassau Energy (ONE). Thirdly, EBN knew that
apart from itself, Catalan and ONE, there was one more active bidder that wasn’t
European or African for that matter but had no leads. Jan-Dirk pledged that EBN
would join my new JV but that I had to meet the Chairman of ONE, Marcel, to get
his buy in. In my presence, Jan-Dirk called Marcel and arranged a lunch meeting
in London with Marcel and the managing director of ONE, Alex.
Back in London, I met with Marcel and Alex at a prestigious
members club that both Marcel and I were members of. Marcel and I hit it off
very well and found that we had a lot of mutual interests in common, more so he
knew my mentor and on the strength of that would be happy to enter into a JV
with Catalan and EBN. However, Alex, was slightly reticent. Alex, it seemed
wasn’t too pleased that I was charming his Chairman right before him and wanted
to put the brakes on this budding bromance. If he wasn’t careful this young
Nigerian could even end up taking his job if this JV worked out. It then became
a battle for control now between Alex and I on the fate of the JV. Alex
proposed that the Catalan management team meet EBN and ONE at ONE’s offices in
Amsterdam the following week to discuss the structure of this new JV and how we
would formally propose to Chevron that we wanted to bid together for Chevron
Netherlands. I agreed to this meeting. I would come with full force.
The following week, the Catalan team and I arrived in Amsterdam.
I ensured that we arrived in style. I had the hotel arrange for five, brand
new, jet-black Mercedes s-classes to ferry the Catalan management team to ONE’s
offices. I wanted Marcel and Alex to know that we meant business and this wasn’t
a Mickey Mouse affair. Marcel and Alex received us at the entrance of their
offices. We certainly made an impression, it looked more like a state
delegation had just arrived at ONE’s offices, ready to discuss oil & gas
diplomacy.
We were taken up to their main conference room where we were
introduced to the rest of ONE’s management team. Our meeting was to discuss two
major points. First, if the JV was to be successful, how would we carve out the
Chevron Netherlands empire? Secondly, if we were to agree to the first point,
how would we approach Chevron and manage the bid process? The meeting became
slightly contentious. EBN did not attend the meeting and didn’t need to. They
made it clear that they were focused on the oil side of Chevron Netherlands and
would only come in for the oil. ONE was also no small fry, they produced 60,000
barrels of crude and gas a day from their assets in the Netherlands and
worldwide.
They were not only keen on the gas coming from Chevron
Netherlands but wanted operational control. This would leave Catalan as a mere
financier/investor with no management control.
Tensions were flaring with no headway being made. I looked at
Marcel and knew that he and I were both frustrated. I motioned to him for us to
meet outside the conference room.
Marcel waved to Alex to join us and I asked Tarica to step
outside with me. The four of us walked over to Alex’s office for a man-to-man
resolution meeting. I made it clear to Marcel and Alex that Catalan’s main
objective was to use Chevron Netherlands as an Africa operator and would make
our fortune from “selling” our technical know-how to wealthy, local investors
in oil-rich producing nations with Angola and Equatorial Guinea as prime
targets followed by Nigeria. However, Catalan would need to have management
control of Chevron Netherlands as we know potential African partners would want
to see the Afro side of an Afro-European oil company in control. Marcel agreed
and Tarica re-emphasised my point.
Alex however was keen for ONE to be an
active player on the gas side as they saw the gas production and potential as
the key driver for being involved in the first place.
We agreed that Catalan would have management control but would
let ONE drive the gas affairs in the JV with EBN doing the same for the oil.
The empire had been carved. Lastly, we agreed that we would write a joint
letter to Chevron notifying them of our intent to form a JV and permission to
submit a joint bid for Chevron Netherlands. The four of us walked back into the
main meeting and marshalled out the next steps to our respective teams.
Marcel saw me off and we both felt like we were on the verge of
something great. I spent a few more days in Amsterdam and revelled in the Dutch
nightlife. I even bought a bicycle. On one fine Amsterdam afternoon as I rode
my bike through town, I thought to myself, “I am about to be a Nigerian
Dutchman”.
When I arrived off the plane from Amsterdam to London, I got a
rather unnerving email from Alex of ONE. He was back to that power-playing game
of his again which was becoming highly frustrating. Alex had written me stating
that before EBN and ONE would agree to write a JV letter to Chevron they needed
to see financial statements from Catalan, a substantial amount of money had to
be put in an escrow account, and he listed another laundry list of conditions
precedent (CP). I was surprised he didn’t ask for my birth certificate and my
mother’s driving license. I thought to myself “Na wa o, this Alex bobo really
has it out for me.” Alex had done this largely to checkmate me and show that he
was the authority on the JV. It was all well and good for his billionaire
Chairman, Marcel to say he was okay with it, but it was Alex that was
responsible for managing the JV and not some young upstart. On the taxi ride back
home, I thought to myself, it would take too long for Catalan to meet all of
Alex’s CP’s and in that time Chevron could have announced a winner as I was
well aware that there was another bidder still out there that we didn’t know
of.
Also, Alex was effectively making Catalan bid for ONE’s
partnership. He would make Catalan sweat to earn partnership rights with ONE
and EBN and then we would sweat further to convince Chevron of our JV. I
decided this was a dangerous road to go down and I would not cave into Alex’s
demands. If there was anything I excelled at in military academy two decades
before, it was in military strategy and tactics. I was going to put all my
training and knowledge to teach this Alex fellow a lesson. ONE and EBN were
going to sign that letter I told myself. They simply had no choice.
I devised a plan, which I fine-tuned with the other two
directors of Catalan. I made sure not to discuss the plan with Catalan’s
management team for fear that it could leak out. The Catalan directors agreed that
for our plan to be successful, I in particular would have to eat humble pie. I
had to reach out to Edgar and I’d also have to pay that princely sum of his. In
addition to Edgar, I needed to get French banker, Guillaume Leenhardt on board.
Guillaume, I had known since I was 13 years old and I’d come to find out that
he was a close friend of Marcel. I met with Edgar for a steak dinner. I
swallowed my pride and apologised profusely for our last meeting that didn’t go
so well. I told Edgar that I wanted him on my team now on a full-time basis.
Edgar knew he was needed now more than ever and cheekily asked for twice the
amount he had originally requested for. This was no longer a princely sum but a
king’s ransom. I did the math. It was worth it. I called my Bankers and made
sure Edgar was paid. That was the first chess move. I called Guillaume and he
just happened to be in London. He asked me to meet him in Hyde Park by the
serpentine lake. I arrived at the lake and saw Guillaume sitting on a bench,
feeding bread to ducks. It was like something out of a spy movie. I briefed
Guillaume on the whole Chevron Netherlands saga and he was impressed to say the
least, “You’re as ambitious and as crazy as your father… I like it!” With that
said Guillaume was on board. More chess moves. My plan for Alex was now set in
motion, it was a mixture of “good cop-bad cop” and what Yoruba’s from Nigeria
call “Ogbon agba”, loosely translated to “An old man’s wisdom”.
I emailed Alex, copying Marcel and key members of ONE, EBN, and
Catalan’s management team. I wrote that Catalan was no longer interested in
partnering with ONE and EBN. I reminded them that Catalan was invited to bid by
Chevron and Jeffries because of our cash raising ability. Alex’s list of CP’s
was a slap in the face to Catalan and had personally offended me and my mentor.
In the same email, I instructed the Catalan management team to cease all
communication with ONE and EBN. The email was a tsunami. ONE and EBN couldn’t
believe that they had just been dumped. Imagine telling the prettiest girl in
school that you were planning to take her to the prom, she thought she had you
wrapped around her finger, and then in one ninja move, you tell her you are no
longer interested. This dejection is what Alex and co. were now feeling. How
could ONE and EBN be told to bog off and most of all by this small boy? It put
them in a state of cataclysmic shock. Bad cop. I then called Edgar and
Guillaume that I had to write such a nuclear bomb of an email because my mentor
and investors were unhappy that ONE was trying to shift the goal post.
I asked Edgar to reach out to Alex and the ONE management team
since he knew them well to speak some sense to them, stating that I wanted to
partner with them but that my mentor and investors were the ones holding me
back, that they were about to lose out on a fruitful partnership. I then
reached out to Guillaume to do the same with Marcel. Good cop.
More chess moves. A week went by. The Catalan team, still
bewildered, called me to reverse the decision in my email, pleading with me
that my stance was suicidal. I refused to budge. Edgar was making progress with
Alex. Alex began to feel that this whole mess was now his fault and didn’t want
to look bad in front of his organisation and EBN. He caved in and with his
contrition, EBN were on board. It was now left for Marcel to give the final
green light. Marcel was enjoying a cruise on the Greek seas on his lovely yacht
and was a little hard to reach. Guillaume finally reached him. Marcel agreed.
Checkmate. Ogbon agba!
I drafted the JV letter to send to Chevron. The reward for my
victory. I emailed it out to ONE and EBN. One hour later the letter was sent
back to me with their signatures. I signed the letter and then forwarded it via
email to Chevron and Jeffries with the Catalan management team in copy. Tarica
called me and wondered how I’d pulled off such a coup. I told him they don’t
teach such at Harvard Business School, that this was native Nigerian business
sense. We both laughed. Chevron on the other hand wasn’t laughing. In the words
of Jeffries, “Catalan was taking over the bid process”. Chevron now knew that
it wouldn’t be too long before the last bidder was found and coerced into the
Catalan-led JV. Chevron is one of the wealthiest companies in the world and
also one of the smartest. They made a few chess moves of their own. They
decided to stall and told the JV through Jeffries that they needed some time to
consider our proposal. They would cleverly use this time to tidy up the bid
with the last, final bidder. A week passed by and I knew this was a race
against time between Catalan and Chevron. If Catalan found this last bidder the
game was up and Chevron would have to cede Chevron Netherlands to the
Catalan-led JV. Chevron for their own part, needed to wrap things up with the
last bidder because if not, they would have been outfoxed by Catalan and might
end up having to sell Chevron Netherlands for a much smaller sale price. Worst
still, there was no way they would lose their Dutch empire to me of all people.
I called both Edgar and Guillaume, asking them to use all their
contacts and resources to find the last bidder. I arranged a conference call
between Catalan, ONE, and EBN with a clear order to find the last bidder and
that once we found them, the bid was ours for the taking. During my time in the
family business, as a director in the upstream oil & gas business, I had a
close working relationship with Chevron Nigeria and knew its managing director.
I dug deep into my email and found emails years back between Chevron’s senior
management based in Houston and I. I reached out to the Chevron Houston team
and went into full salesmanship. The Catalan-led JV was well suited to buy
Chevron Netherlands. We were a mix of cash (Catalan), operational experience (ONE),
and government-state backing (EBN). There was no better group to sell to.
Chevron Houston asked for time to consider.
Guillaume had come up with no leads but Edgar had, the kings
ransom I paid for his services was showing dividend. Edgar had gotten in touch
with Martin Lovegrove, a senior adviser to the global CEO of Chevron. Martin
informed Edgar, that the Chevron global deal team sitting at headquarters in
California – Chevron San Ramon, were debating what to do.
It was becoming an internal debate between Chevron Houston and
Chevron San Ramon on whether to conclude with the last bidder or pivot to the
Catalan-led JV. I waited on the outcome. My 30th birthday was on June 21, 2014.
I had planned a big comic book inspired costume party to ring in my special day
but I cancelled all those plans. I felt Chevron Netherlands was slipping away
from me and this was not the time to celebrate anything.
On July 14, 2014, I received a letter from Chevron. They had
made up their mind. Chevron San Ramon had their way. There was to be no room
for the Catalan-led JV and they were concluding the sale of Chevron Netherlands
imminently. To say I was devastated wouldn’t capture how low and defeated I
felt. Chevron Netherlands was destined to be mine. I was going to ride back into
Africa on my Trojan Horse and become King. I had given every part of me, every
fibre of my being and it was immeasurably painful to come so close to victory
and lose. ONE and EBN wrote to Catalan formally withdrawing their participation
in Chevron Netherlands. They had sailed off into the North Sea sunset. I
stubbornly refused to give up and wrote another letter to Chevron that Catalan
would be prepared to pay up to USD 100 million for Chevron Netherlands.
Frankly, I didn’t know where I was going to find the money but I was throwing
one last shot out there when in actuality it was no more than medicine after
death. A few days after my last pitch letter, Richard Kent sent me an email;
Chevron Netherlands had been sold to Petrogas of Oman. The last bidder, the
mystery company I couldn’t find. I’d later come to find out that USD 50 million
plus an absorption of all the abandex was the winning formula for the bid – the
same formula that I had proposed to my management team but they had pushed back
on. This was a painful lesson to always trust my instincts, no matter the
circumstance. Edgar later told me that if I had brought him on from day one,
the first question he would have asked me was, “What amount are you willing to
pay for Chevron Netherlands, given what you wanted to use it for in Africa?” I
told Edgar that the price I would have paid was USD 50 million. I should have
paid Edgar his princely sum the first-time round, never again would I let ego
or pride cloud my judgment.
Members of the Chevron team in London called me. They
congratulated me on a well-fought bid and marvelled at my ability to push them
so hard in their own bid process. Richard Kent of Jeffries took me out for a
drink. He told me I was the type of bidder he liked working with, tenacious and
aggressive. Richard wanted to know if I was interested in another bid,
something was coming up in Italy. I told Richard I was done. I looked finished.
I said goodbye to the Catalan team and paid their fees. Tarica took me out for
a meal, trying to encourage me. We joked about how legendary this bid was and
how I had brought back Catalan’s quest to life on multiple occasions when all
seemed lost. This was all consolation. I thought, no one remembers the 1st
runner up, second place is just not first place. My mentor called me and told
not me not to be hard on myself, that
this was all a learning process and that it would shape me for further battles
in the future. I agreed with him but nothing could make up for my loss.
Whilst I lay in bed that night, one of my closest confidants
nicknamed Heisenberg and a director in Catalan called me. I remember our
conversation like it was yesterday.
Heisenberg said, “Mr. P, how many people are given the
opportunity you had at 29 to buy Chevron Netherlands? How many Nigerians can
ever say they were in a competitive bid to buy an oil & gas company in
Europe and almost won? How many young men at your age with the same background,
simply settle for less? But you went out into the real world and fought hard
and fought valiantly. You got one of the largest indigenous Dutch oil companies
and the Dutch state-run oil company to partner with you. You might have lost
but you won. Take this as a privilege and that God himself is shaping you into
a Man and not just any Man.” He was right and I agreed. Heisenberg advised that
I head off to the one place that always rejuvenates my soul… Los Angeles. I got
up out of bed, walked down into my study, went online and bought a ticket for
the next morning’s flight to Los Angeles. I would go away for two months.
I arrived in Los Angeles half a day later. I sat in my apartment
for the first two days. I barely ate and just stared into nothing. This was the
cathartic process to get over my loss.
Then I got into my car and drove to
Malibu. There is nothing more peaceful than a scenic drive down the Pacific
Coast Highway (PCH). The Pacific Ocean waters out to infinity on your left and
there are cliffs, bluffs, and stunning mountains to your right. The California
sun in all its warmth shines down and that good Cali fever infects your soul.
This was Californication at its finest. I enjoyed my two months in Los Angeles.
I partied hard, went to the Drake vs. Lil Wayne concert at the Hollywood Bowl,
sat courtside and watched Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers play a good
game, ate well and one night dined at BOA steakhouse on Sunset – at the table
in front of me was an orange haired business man named Donald Trump, if only I
had a crystal ball then. I went to Disneyworld and had a blast.
California had
healed me. I was okay again. I thanked God not only for the opportunity and the
experience but also for blessing me with a good life. He had taught me some
valuable lessons and helped me discover new parts of myself I didn’t know
existed. Heisenberg was right, I was becoming a Man in the true sense of the
word.
A year later, I moved back to Lagos for a few months to be
closer to my family and to take a break from work. A South African company,
HKLM that had helped my father design the logo for his telecoms company were in
Lagos doing some further design work for my father.
My father always uses a
bull as his personal insignia and it had become synonymous with him. Gary
Harwood of HKLM asked me if I wanted my father’s bull insignia adorned on any
clothing or stationery. I told Gary that I wasn’t a bull and that my father was
“the bull”. Gary countered and said, “Well Paddy if you are not a bull, then
what are you?” I paused for a moment, thinking. My mother was born on August
2nd, 1950; she is a Leo by star sign. Leo’s are lions and I was my mother’s
lion son, her Simba. I told Gary, “I am a Lion. I always have been and always
will be.” Two weeks later Gary sent me a design of my own personal insignia, it
was a Lion’s head. We made a few tweaks to make the Lion look more intimidating
yet regal and Gary sent me the final design. In a very clever and touching way,
Gary and his team had woven some of my facial features into the design of the
Lion’s face. This Lion no matter who might see it or who might copy it would
have me staring right back at them. I thanked him for a wonderful present.
I called Remi and told him that I was back in Lagos. He invited
me over to his palatial and modern home. He liked my Lion’s head insignia that
I had stitched onto the pocket of my native Nigerian kaftan. We sat down for
hours and talked business and politics. Then Remi asked me what was I doing in
London all that time, away from the family business. I was happy to tell him
about Chevron Netherlands at this point, the deal was done and over.
Remi looked at me in astonishment, “You mean you took on a whole
Chevron, with no noise, no fanfare and none of us knew? Ahh bros you try!” We
laughed it off. Remi then revealed the biggest bombshell of my Chevron
Netherlands adventure. The managing director of Petrogas of Oman was a close
friend of his and he knew he was bidding for Chevron Netherlands at the time.
If I had told him what I was up to when we saw in London, whilst I was
searching for the last bidder, he would have introduced us. I was blown away.
There it was that whole time. That mystery last bidder that I had searched so
hard for was there for my taking and it passed right by me.
I went back home that night and made myself the strongest drink.
History couldn’t tell this story. I would have to.
No comments:
Post a Comment