If Brandon Cradeur had returned to his family's farming operation near Lafayette, Louisiana, after college, he would have been the sixth generation to do so. Instead, when he graduated from Louisiana State University in the mid-1990s, he joined Ernst & Young in Houston.
Energy was a big part of the economy in South Louisiana, and Cradeur hoped to work in it someday. At the time, however, oil and gas was deep into the second of three downcycles Cradeur has lived through.
Brandon Cradeur
Today, Cradeur leads the Houston transaction advisory services practice for accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP. He also helps with the firm's private-equity initiative and has been tapped to lead the firm's national oil and gas transaction advisory business.
During the first of two stints with Ernst & Young, Cradeur's clients shifted into a buying and selling mode and he realized he preferred transactions to audits. After several years he joined Richard McDugald and Tony Chase's joint family office. There, he took a corporate development role as the firm sold several portfolio companies and started ChaseCom, a telecom company focused on outsourcing sales and marketing that grew from five to 650 employees over three to four years.
By this point oil and gas had returned to a growth phase, so Cradeur decided it was time to focus on energy. He rejoined Ernst & Young for seven years, spending three of those back in Lafayette to be with family. He worked on upwards of 150 transactions ranging in size from $5 million to $14 billion.
In 2008, he was recruited to join Denham Capital, where he helped manage primarily midstream and oil-field service companies. He sat on boards, worked with management teams and helped companies navigate operational reorganizations and recapitalizations as they fought to stay afloat during the financial crisis.
"I went from an advisory role in oil and gas to rolling up my sleeves and helping companies through those challenging times," he says.
Eventually most of the companies in that portfolio were sold, so Cradeur joined Grant Thornton to lead the Houston transaction advisory practice.
In his spare time, Cradeur participates in the Mardi Gras Rio Krewe in Lafayette, which throws the best party he's been to, he notes with pride. When he can't get to Lafayette, he celebrates Mardi Gras in Galveston. He volunteers with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo; bird hunting and LSU football games are also passions.
Recently he took time out to discuss industry trends.
Investor What have you learned from deals that didn't close?
Cradeur One of my first projects at Grant Thornton involved a large private company looking to buy a service product line carve-out from a large international public company, with assets in about 29 countries. For four months, I was in the corporate development officer role, working with the attorneys, investment bankers and the strategic management team. Ultimately the deal died, but it was a great experience for both the client and our team. I remember some advice I got from Tony Chase back in 1999. At the time, we were looking at lots of deals and I was eager to pull the trigger on one. Tony said, some of the best deals I've done are the deals I didn't do. And he was right—in March 2000 the dot.com ? bust happened, and the companies' values declined significantly.
That comment resonated with me through the years. We may get so focused on closing deals we forget there's a reason why a deal doesn't get done. Whether you consider that a success or failure depends on how you look at it.
Investor What else are you working on?
Cradeur We have about six clients looking at active deals. Some are private-equity clients looking at Canadian assets, mainly near the southern border and another AIM-listed firm is looking at assets in Texas.
Just this past month, a deal we worked on for Geo-Resources was announced—it was merged into Floyd Wilson's new company, Halcon Resources, for $1 billion.
Investor What trends do you see in A&D?
Cradeur We're starting to see private-equity and strategic companies make contrarian plays for natural gas assets as larger companies divest gas to focus on oil. These are nontraditional private equity and international firms buying to hold for the long term. It's not a new playbook, but it's happening at a faster speed.
In fracing, we see a lot of activity in the frac-sand mining sector—it's both in building out capacity to meet demand and consolidation. There's vertical integration from both sides, and private equity is also coming into that space.
Investor How have your different experiences helped you?
Cradeur I have a perspective that focuses on business and transaction risks as someone who has participated in owning and managing companies, rather than someone just looking at accounting implications. It's a different perspective that I believe gives my clients a competitive advantage.
—Susan Klann
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