Energy & Industrials
The global climate crisis has created both challenges and opportunities in energy production and consumption. Business leaders are seeking alternatives to fossil fuels to achieve sustainability goals and to meet government regulations. Blue Heron Research Partners gives investors the insights they need to understand this rapidly changing sector.
Finding clarity in an evolving world
Blue Heron’s energy and industrials team includes former journalists from Bloomberg News, Forbes, and other publications, building upon decades of experience in the sector.
Over the past five years, the energy and industrials team has conducted hundreds of due diligence projects for a wide variety of investors. During this time, steel makers, building material suppliers, and construction firms have all tried to reduce costs associated with energy use and carbon emissions. Transportation and logistics are also gearing up for big changes, including electric and driverless vehicles, AI-assisted deliveries, and package tracking. Blue Heron delves into management changes and strategic options in this sector so investors can make well-informed decisions.
Recent areas of research
Oil and gas producers
Upstream, refineries, pipelines
Renewable energy
Developers, equipment suppliers, financers
Construction materials
Steel, aggregates, cement
Automotive
Parts, technologies, specialty coatings
Utilities
Electric, gas, water, communication
Oil and gas majors
When exploring whether the new CEO of a major oil company was the right fit for the company’s culture, Blue Heron found that he had prioritized attaining financial goals at the cost of some sustainability goals.
Steel manufacturers
After investigating a major steel company’s management team, Blue Heron learned that the company was dedicated to updating factories to cleaner technologies but had no clear succession plan for the long-time CEO.
Construction projects
Through conversations with workers and engineers who had left an ambitious entertainment arena project, Blue Heron discovered the project was not only behind schedule and over budget, but also unlikely to deliver the level of entertainment promised.
Renewable energy developers
To explore the boom-and-bust cycles faced by solar and wind energy developers in the US as federal tax credits expire and resume, Blue Heron investigated a variety of management teams to learn which strategies work and why.
Meet our energy and industrials team
Chris Martin
Sector Leader, Energy
Chris is Energy and Industrials Sector Leader and an Energy and Industrials Senior Researcher at Blue Heron. He previously worked at Bloomberg News, where he covered energy markets, company earnings and mergers, the emergence of renewable energy, and the climate crisis. He earned recognition for his work as a reporter for over 25 years, including a National Press Club award for a series of Bloomberg Businessweek stories on solar power. Before journalism, he taught English and accounting as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji.
Paul Mindus
Practice Leader Management Due Diligence, Senior Researcher
Paul is an Energy and Industrials Senior Researcher and Practice Leader for Management Due Diligence at Blue Heron. He was a journalist at Reuters for 23 years, mostly in Europe and Asia, covering politics and major news events like the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was an investigative and political reporter at The Patriot Ledger in Massachusetts, The Boston Herald, and The Evening Sun in Baltimore. Before joining Blue Heron in 2014, he worked on business development for The Saint Consulting Group, a land use consultancy, and was editor of The Saint Report, a blog on land use politics.
Adrian Dickson
Project Manager, International
Adrian is an Energy and Industrials Project Manager and Researcher at Blue Heron. With broad international experience following a career of over 20 years as a journalist and senior editor at Reuters, Adrian has led diligence projects for Blue Heron in several countries, including China, Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Nigeria, as well as in Europe and the United States. Earlier in his career, while working for Reuters, he launched several real-time professional financial news services in Brazil, Japan, China, and India. Based out of Buenos Aires, he is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.