Blackstone Advisory Partners Bolsters Energy Practice
New York, NY, February 26, 2014. Blackstone Advisory Partners (“BAP”), the financial advisory arm of Blackstone (NYSE:BX), today announced that Keith Lord and Dayan Abeyaratne will join BAP’s Energy, Power and Renewables Advisory Practice. Both will serve as Managing Directors, augmenting the business’ growing energy practice. Earlier this year, Blackstone announced that James (“Jim”) Schaefer joined BAP to lead the Energy, Power and Renewables practice.
Mr. Lord previously served as the Global Head of Power and Utilities M&A at UBS. Mr. Lord’s strategic advisory experience at UBS includes structuring and financing Dominion Resources’ Cove Point LNG export facility, advising Dominion on its midstream joint-venture with Caiman Energy, and advising Riverstone on its acquisition and financing of Exelon’s Maryland coal generation assets, among a variety of other transactions. Previously, Mr. Lord also held positions at Evercore, Wasserstein Perella & Co., and Lehman Brothers. He also worked for Transmission Developers Inc., a Blackstone Private Equity portfolio company. He received an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and a B.S. in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Mr. Abeyaratne previously served as Head of Generation Advisory of the Global Power and Utilities Group at UBS, where he led the origination of several high yield financings for key clients including Riverstone, Tenaska, Calpine and Dynegy. Prior to that, Mr. Abeyaratne worked at Constellation Energy/Exelon Corp., where he led the acquisition of Boston Gen and played an integral role in Constellation’s $34 billion merger with Exelon. Prior to Constellation Energy, Mr. Abeyaratne held several positions at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers. He received an M.B.A. from the Anderson School at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a B.A. in Economics from Allegheny College.
John Studzinski, Global Head of Blackstone Advisory Partners, said, “The addition of Jim, Keith and Dayan to Blackstone’s advisory group will transform our energy, power and renewables practice and allow us to broaden the range of new and important clients in these sectors. They bring to Blackstone extensive knowledge of energy-related mergers, acquisitions and financing, and their expertise will undoubtedly benefit our business and our clients.”
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