#330 - Billy Quinn - Founder @ Pearl Energy - Navigating the High-Stakes World of Energy Private Equity

Billy is the founder and Managing Partner of Pearl Energy Investments and manages the firm. He currently sits on the board of most Pearl portfolio companies including Permian Resources, SLANT Energy, Infinity Natural Resources, and Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. Before founding Pearl, Billy served as Co-Managing Partner of Natural Gas Partners (NGP) for almost 20 years. As Managing Partner, he co-managed NGP’s investment portfolio and played an active role in the full range of NGP’s investment process. In addition, Billy gained valuable investment experience working for Rainwater, Inc. and Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst, Inc. He also worked as an analyst in the investment banking divisions of Bear Stearns & Co. and BT Securities Corporation. On this episode, Chris and Billy discuss: Running due diligence on a fund and operator Predicting the potential success of a company you acquire How to be a great capital partner How the industry has changed over 30 years The future for PE-backed Oil and Gas companies Fundraising, hiring, and building relationships We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners.  https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Links Pearl Energy Investments Billy on LinkedIn Topics (00:00:00) - Intro (00:02:46) - Billy’s career in Oil and Gas PE (00:10:01) - Finding equilibrium in owning oil and buying oil (00:13:21) - Running due diligence on a fund and an operator (00:19:05) - Backing Permian Resources (00:24:05) - The importance of being close to the asset you operate (00:25:12) - How can you predict the potential success of a company you acquire? (00:29:10) - How to know you’re being a good partner (00:33:02) - Experiences during Covid (00:40:22) - Leaving NGP and forming Pearl (00:49:38) - How has the industry changed over 30 years (00:54:00) - What’s the best price for oil? (00:54:59) - Consolidation in the industry (00:56:43) - The Future for PE-backed Oil and Gas Companies (00:59:20) - Is capital coming back into the industry? (01:04:13) - What’s your strategy around fundraising? (01:13:08) - How do you think about hiring and relationships? (01:14:34) - Billy’s love for MMA Support our Sponsors Relay Human Cloud: https://bit.ly/3sjQcaY Fort Capital: https://bit.ly/FortCapital Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Chris on Social Media: X: https://bit.ly/3BYIjcH LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd   Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO  The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts