Blackstone and former senior executives of Pride International have partnered to form Clarion Offshore Partners, a platform to provide strategic solutions to the offshore oil and gas drilling and services sector, with a financial commitment from private equity funds managed by Blackstone.
Clarion’s investment mandate enables the partnership to pursue opportunities with a wide array of industry participants, including offshore drilling companies, shipyards, financial institutions, investors, and oil and gas operators. The partnership will provide creative financing solutions including growth and restructuring capital to the sector.
The Clarion team is led by senior executives with experience in the offshore drilling services sector who have operated in offshore basin around the world. Clarion’s chairman, Louis Raspino, together with partners Greg Looser, Kevin Robert, and Ron Toufeeq, were the majority of the executive management team at Pride International.
Under the leadership of Raspino as chief executive officer, with Toufeeq as chief operating officer, Robert as chief commercial officer and head of business development, and Looser as chief administrative officer and general counsel, Pride International restructured its balance sheet, rebuilt its worldwide management team and infrastructure, and executed asset rationalizations.