COSCO Capital Management LLC Members:
Managing Directors
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Cameron O. Smith Senior Managing Director 150 East 44th Street, Suite 38B New York NY 10017 212/889-0206 (direct) 212/697-0100 (main) 212/697-0312 (fax) cos@coscocap.com |
Mr. Smith, COSCO's Founder and Senior Managing Director, has been an active participant in the oil and gas and natural resource businesses since 1975 as a working geologist, industry executive, financier, investment strategist, and educator.
Mr. Smith founded COSCO in January, 1992, after eighteen years on the operations side in the US and Canada. Mr. Smith functions as COSCO’s chief executive officer, responsible for charting its strategic direction and managing its current business and personnel. For COSCO’s clients, Mr. Smith typically leads equity engagements, particularly if the client is located in the Mid-Continent, Rocky Mountains, West Coast, or overseas. Mr. Smith is also COSCO’s primary public spokesman, regularly participating as a moderator on panels dealing with capital at energy forums and authoring and contributing to countless articles in the industry and financial press.
After receiving his Masters in Geology from Penn State in 1975, Mr. Smith joined The Catawba Corporation, which was then the William F. Buckley Family's private consulting and holding company. During this period, Catawba's principals ran seven public companies engaged in exploration and production of oil, gas, and certain mining interests in North and South America, Europe, North Africa, the Philippines, and Australia. For Catawba, Mr. Smith served as an exploration geologist, officer, and director of several of its public clients, as well as president and director of a number of its private energy and real estate subsidiaries.
In 1985, Mr. Smith took over ownership and management of Catawba's former private operating subsidiary, Taconic Petroleum Corporation, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which he had founded in 1978. Taconic and its wholly owned subsidiary, Albercan Oil Corporation, based in Calgary, Alberta, through this period generated prospects, formed three highly successful exploration joint ventures in the U.S. and Canada, sponsored several exploration and acquisition-focused partnerships with accredited individuals, and engineered several significant corporate acquisitions, including one with complex cross-border holdings in the U.S. and Canada.
After selling Taconic in 1991, Mr. Smith returned to New York to establish COSCO expressly to assist energy company officials to access professionally managed capital to invest in the energy business. In mid-1992, through COSCO Mr. Smith became engaged by Odyssey Partners, LP, a $2 billion public hedge fund with an active private equity practice, eventually moving in-house to become its full-time energy advisor. During this period, Odyssey invested successfully in several public energy companies in the U.S. and Canada. In 1996, when Odyssey disbanded, Mr. Smith significantly expanded COSCO's mandate and practice, overseeing its expansion into its current profile. |
William E. Weidner Managing Director 14 Station Street, 2nd Floor Simsbury CT 06070 860/658-6700 (direct) 860/658-6704 (fax) wew@coscocap.com |
Mr. Weidner has been active in the energy business since 1980, first as a geologist in the oil and gas industry, then as a banker, a principal investor, and now as a financial intermediary. He joined COSCO in 1997. For COSCO, Mr. Weidner advises oil and gas company clients seeking professional assistance achieving their financial objectives. Through this effort he has led or co-led the structuring and closing of over $800 million of financings and transactions, ranging from common equity to mezzanine debt, balance sheet restructuring, oil and gas reserve monetization and corporate M&A, including one transaction as a buy-side advisor and owner on a $250 million corporate acquisition. Mr. Weidner is a co-founder and the President of Private Energy Securities, Inc. (member NASD, SIPC), through which COSCO conducts all of its placements of private securities.
Prior to joining COSCO, Mr. Weidner managed Weidner & Co., a financial intermediary specializing in the energy sector, which he founded in 1994. From 1988-1994, Mr. Weidner worked in all phases of the private placement investment management business for RIMCO, an oil and gas investment firm based in Avon, Connecticut. Prior to RIMCO, Mr. Weidner was employed in the commercial lending group at The Bank of New England in 1987, and prior to that as a petroleum geologist in the Appalachian Basin and in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. Weidner earned a B.A. from The College of Wooster and an M.S. in Geology from Kent State University. Mr. Weidner also contributes regularly to the Oil and Gas Investor magazine, writing on the subject of Private Capital for Energy.
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Lane W. McKay Managing Director 501, 304-8th Avenue SW Calgary AB T2P 1C2 403/237-9462 (direct) 403/237-9464 (fax) lwm@coscocap.com |
Mr. McKay joined COSCO as a Member and Managing Director in May 2003. He is also now CEO, President, and a Director of COSCO Canada Ltd. Mr. McKay’s responsibilities for COSCO, in addition to managing COSCO Canada’s Calgary office, are to source and serve COSCO’s Canadian clients on both the buy and the sell sides, as well as to identify, monitor, and establish relationships with new sources of Private Capital in Canada that are rapidly developing for energy placements. Before joining COSCO, Mr. McKay, in early 2002, formed Loewen & Partners Corporate Services Inc., which specialized in emerging growth company capitalization, management and organization, acquisitions, MBO’s and integration.
In the seventeen years prior to forming Loewen, Mr. McKay had been in the commercial property and casualty insurance brokerage business, culminating in the co-founding of Canada Brokerlink Inc, a consolidator of privately owned P & C Insurance Brokerages, where between 1997 and 1999, as a co-founder, Director and Vice President of Acquisitions, he completed 36 private acquisitions and four divestitures building Canada Brokerlink into Canada’s 3rd largest general insurance brokerage network. In 2000, Canada Brokerlink was sold to Alianz Insurance and privatized.
Principals
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T. Prescott (Scott) Kessey Principal 1001 Fannin, Suite 550 Houston TX 77002 713/654-8080 (direct) 713/654-9090 (fax) tpk@coscocap.com |
Mr. Kessey has been affiliated with COSCO since January 2000, formally joining the firm in May of that year. In January 2001, Mr. Kessey became a Member of COSCO and was appointed a Principal. Mr. Kessey has provided a crucial co-lead role on most U.S. financings COSCO has performed since he joined the firm. Mr. Kessey serves as COSCO’s Chief Financial Officer, in which capacity he has also served on an interim basis for a number of COSCO’s Clients. Mr. Kessey has also presided over the reorganization of COSCO’s corporate, legal, tax and financial structures, simplifying its investment profile in both the US and Canada.
From 1998 to 1999, Mr. Kessey served as Manager Corporate Finance for Integrated Seismic Solutions, after which he acted as an independent consultant, providing financial advisory services to independent oil and gas businesses. From 1991 to 1997, Mr. Kessey was employed by American Exploration Company (“AEC”), where he held various positions, ultimately serving as Manager Corporate Planning. Prior to AEC, he was employed as a staff accountant for the public accounting firm of KPMG Peat Marwick. Mr. Kessey was graduated in 1986 by The University of Texas at Austin with a BBA in Finance, Real Estate and Accounting. He has been a licensed CPA (Texas) since 1992. |
Emilie Carlsson Principal 150 East 44th Street, Suite 38B New York, NY 10017 212/697-0100 (direct) 212/697-0312 (fax) enc@coscocap.com |
Ms. Carlsson is located in New York City, and, has for over eleven years, specialized in both US and international financial advisory services, particularly within the energy sector. She has a broad background within the energy industry, having begun her career assisting government and energy industry executive clients to plan for the growth of the renewable energy and the deregulation of the electricity markets in Australia and New Zealand. Ms. Carlsson then joined Sydney Gas Limited, a gas explorer and producer, which, during her tenure, achieved 750% growth in market capitalization. Ms. Carlsson assisted it in capital raisings and establishing new production and gas treatment facilities. She was also responsible for planning new projects and in government and corporate relations. After winning a Green Card from the United States, Ms. Carlsson became the Director of Corporate Development for Mannon Oil LLC, located in Dallas, Texas, before joining Smooth Engine, a boutique merchant bank in New York, raising capital for middle-market energy and industrial clients. Ms. Carlsson is currently working with COSCO in its New York office, assisting it with analysis of current finance assignments and in facilitating development of potential clients principally abroad, both directly and through COSCO’s existing network of Colleagues in London, Sydney, and Caracas.
Associate
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Reva A. White Associate 8655 E. Carol Avenue Mesa AZ 85208 480/649-5048 (direct) 801/457-6177 (e-fax) reva@coscocap.com |
Ms. White became a COSCO Associate in late 2001 and a Member in May 2003. Since 1999, initially as an independent contractor, she has worked with the COSCO team in organizing the COSCO Forums, for which she took over responsibility for operational production, prior to their sale to Oil and Gas Investor at the end of 2007. Ms. White is responsible for final proofing and securing compliance review for all COSCO advertising and client materials, maintaining COSCO’s database, performing research on U.S. and Canadian capital sources, assisting in production of documents and contracts, and carrying out COSCO’s monthly invoicing and accounts payable. Over the past ten years, Ms. White has held positions dealing with the energy industry, principally in Canada, including four years working in the corporate finance departments of Raymond James & Associates, Inc. and Midland Walwyn Inc., as well as for an energy trust company, all located in Calgary. Prior to joining the energy sector, she managed administration of family-owned businesses based in Ontario.
Analyst
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James M. Masters Analyst 150 East 44th Street, Suite 38B New York NY 10017 212/697-0100 (direct) 212/697-0312 (fax) jmm@coscocap.com |
Mr. Masters joined COSCO as an Analyst in June, 2007. He is primarily responsible for assisting Cameron Smith with client development and services, as well as marketing. With respect to clients, Mr. Masters performs necessary due diligence, assists in the drafting of private placement memorandums, creates client presentations, and maintains marketing status reports. Additionally, Mr. Masters is in charge of updating the COSCO website, preparing the semi-annual Private Capital for Energy Index Report, and coordinating COSCO’s shared electronic filing system and standard forms. Mr. Masters was graduated from Pepperdine University in 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.
Prior to joining COSCO, Mr. Masters completed an intensive international relations post-graduate program through Bard College. He worked in the development office at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, participating in an effort that raised $150,000 in an initial capital campaign.
