White Deer Energy Hosts 2023 Annual General Meeting, Guest Speaker Marshall Adkins
Our Annual General Meeting is always a great opportunity for the White Deer community to come together for updates, shared learning, and the chance to build for the future. We recently held this year’s AGM at the St. Regis Hotel in Houston; read on to learn more about what we presented and discussed.
An Evening with Justice Ken Wise
The evening before our Annual General Meeting, we held a dinner where Justice Ken Wise joined us as the guest speaker. In addition to presiding over the 14th Court of Appeals, Justice Wise hosts the Wise About Texas podcast which approaches Texas history with an engaging, scholarly attitude. His entertaining dinner address touched on much of Texas’ past and the deep ties to the oil and gas industry.
White Deer Funds and the Industry’s Future
After Founding Partners Tom Edelman and Ben Guill welcomed our investors and partners, Managing Partners Joe Bob Edwards and Jim Meneely reviewed our two active funds, White Deer II and White Deer III, respectively. Edwards highlighted White Deer II, which is nearing its 11th anniversary in early 2024 and is keenly focused on generating liquidity, while Meneely focused on White Deer III, a 2018 vintage focused on value creation.
Both partners were able to provide key updates to the funds and set the stage for our keynote speaker, Marshall Adkins, Head of Energy Research at Raymond James.
Marshall's insightful presentation on the current macro-economic environment underscored the need for capital investments to be made to sustain oil and gas production amid growing global energy demand and misguided policy. We believe this environment positions our firm well to achieve outsized returns, and we were delighted to see external viewpoints that resonate with our own.
Spotlighting New White Deer Companies
Before the meeting concluded, two "New Deal Spotlight" panels were held. During the first panel, Managing Director Varun Babbili and Vice President Ed Davis discussed the partnership between White Deer and Kaydon with Eli Florence, the President and CEO of Kaydon. The second panel consisted of Managing Partner Jim Meneely and Vice President Marshall Wills in conversation with Steven Madden and Brian Anderson, representatives from WeldFit. Eli and Steven highlighted the reasons why their companies chose to partner with White Deer and concluded by answering engaging questions from the audience about their individual success stories.
WeldFit, located in Houston, Texas, is a leading manufacturer and provider of critical pipeline maintenance, emissions management, and flow assurance products and services to the US natural gas infrastructure market.
Kaydon, located in Canton, Massachusetts, is a leading electrical services & building technology solutions provider in the northeast US, serving building retrofits and new construction projects and solar generation projects.
Both Kaydon and WeldFit are within White Deer's investment strategy, which focuses on identifying and partnering with high-growth service companies in the energy sector. We are proud to have both companies in the White Deer portfolio, and we look forward to seeing their continued growth and success.
Until Next Year
In all, it was another successful Annual General Meeting. As we approach 2024, we are enthusiastic about the success and learnings the future promises for us, our partners, and our investors.