Today’s Unique Opportunity

A Message From Our CEO, Laura Pommer

In 2018, I fulfilled a lifetime dream - founding an oil and gas company. I walked away from that dream to lead the EnergyFunders organization. Leaving behind a generous pay package and $75 million in backing from a prestigious private equity fund was no easy decision. Here’s why I did it…

The Traditional Energy Funding Model Is Broken.

The fundamental problem: a long line of fees, expenses and promotion structures standing between investors and well-head economics. Meanwhile, in both public and private investment vehicles, the industry suffers from chronic mis-alignment of incentives between capital providers and capital allocators. I saw these conflicts firsthand, both on the public side of the market at Anadarko, and from the inside of my own private oil and gas company.

In private markets, billions in cheap capital poured into overpriced acreage, with the aim of flipping undeveloped acreage to a higher bidder down the road. This game only works until the music stops playing, as we’ve seen in recent years. Meanwhile, investor dollars passed through multiple organizational layers before ever getting to the wellhead – accruing fees at both the asset management level and operator level. By the time investors realize the true value of what they own, the management fees have already been paid, often revealing lackluster returns after the fact.

In public markets, the C-suite and corporate board members design their own compensation packages. The all-too common result: bloated G&A budgets and lucrative bonus packages - often financed via shareholder dilution - regardless of the returns generated for equity investors.