The private equity owner of Maverick Natural Resources is exploring a potential sale that could value the U.S. oil and gas producer at nearly $3 billion, including debt, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Houston-based exploration and production company, which is owned by energy-focused investment firm EIG, is working with investment bankers at Jefferies on the sale process, the sources said, requesting anonymity as the discussions are confidential.
Potential buyers, such as oil & gas producers and other investment firms, would have to take on nearly $800 million of Maverick’s debt, including the outstanding amount on an asset-backed securitization tied to some of its assets, the sources said, cautioning that no deal is guaranteed.
An asset-backed securitization is a financing structure where some assets of a company are used as collateral for the issuance of notes or bonds sold to investors. In the case of energy operators such as Maverick, the collateral is revenue tied to its future oil and gas production.
Such financing structures have been used by private oil and gas companies to fund operations amid a pullback in lending by some banks concerned by the industry’s environmental impact.
A potential deal for Maverick comes as a dealmaking boom sweeps through the U.S. shale industry. Large energy producers have been willing to splurge on deals to gain scale and snap up prime drilling sites, thus creating exit opportunities for buyout firms holding oil and gas assets.
EIG and Maverick did not respond to comment requests. Jefferies declined comment.
Maverick was formed in 2018 following the Chapter 11 of its predecessor firm Breitburn Energy Partners. Since emerging from bankruptcy, it has grown through acquisitions and struck deals to acquire FourPoint Energy and some of ConocoPhillips’ assets.
Maverick primarily operates in the Anadarko basin of Oklahoma and a sub-section of the Permian basin in New Mexico known as the Northwest Shelf.
The company produces roughly 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, about two-thirds of which are natural gas and natural gas liquids, from all its combined operations, one of the sources said.
(Reporting by David French and Shariq Khan in New York Editing by Nick Zieminski)