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I think there are a lot of reasons to be excited about Houston IB. While it appears the theme of major industry consolidation is winding down (for now), the uncertainty regarding commodity prices, capital structure, new energy etc. mean that existing companies are going to look to their advisors to help them navigate. Roughly speaking in E&P land, the question remains on how to attract generalist investors back to public equities and the dialogue there centers around establishing some mix of fixed and variable dividends (cash vs buybacks?). Elsewhere, co's need to rationalize their portfolios and decide what they can realistically develop economically in the next 10 years - that leads to a lot of A&D and opportunities to pitch lots of strategic alternatives. Another item of note is how these companies look at their capital stack moving forward. We have heard incessantly that 1.0x leverage is the target but that was under the assumption we would stay in mid-cycle commodity price environment. Now if you think prices will stay elevated, wouldn't a lot of companies be over-equitized? My point being is that in an industry that requires a TON of capital that there will always be deals and things to advise on. While the fervor won't reach peak shale-mania, if you get a seat in Houston at a good bank, I think you can expect to see a lot of exciting things.

On top of traditional O&G being exciting, if your group gets the chance to advise on new energy deals, all the better. Personally it makes sense that energy groups in Houston will see a lot of initial new energy deals centered around CCS and other low-tech, high-importance initiatives. 

 

Second this. My group has already started seeing CCS deals and I think that will only continue to improve. O&G isn't sexy but it is still a critical sector that, like you mentioned, requires capital. All the shortages you are seeing around the world have been taking place because I think investors and such have turned away from O&G too soon and there is a capital deficit. I bet that opportunistic investors will start flowing back towards O&G and that requirement to facilitate capital will require IB

 

Would also add that with this big shift towards ESG, a lot of the Houston teams have started broadening their mandates outside of just O&G to include "green" deals and renewables. A lot of the work previously done out of NYC has been allocated to some of the Houston people (i.e. CS rebranding to include infrastructure), which is nice to see. I will say that even with the recent commodity pricing environments, I'm reluctant to say M&A and deal activity will pickup. A lot of the E&P and OFS players that were previously serial buyers and drillers have toned down their business - just look at trends with capex as % of cfo recently. For the boutiques, I think they're generally right where they need to be in terms of team size given the large restructuring cycle we saw last year, but bulges may be looking to add back a couple people since I know firms like JPM excessively cut headcount expecting a worse environment.

 

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