PE Investing in Energy from Coast to Coast

Riverstone Holdings has participated in a roughly $400 million growth investment in Pattern Energy Group. The new capital will be used in part to finance the company's development, construction and operating pipeline of wind and renewable energy products. In total, Pattern has received $800 million from Riverstone and certain Pattern employees. Riverstone first acquired a stake in Pattern through an LBO in June 2009.

There have been 471 energy companies involved in PE deals since the beginning of 2007, according to the PitchBook Platform. Texan companies have dominated deal activity each year except for during 2008, when the deal count spiked up to 262 deals from 105 in 2007, and California and New York momentarily surpassed the Lone Star State with 15.6% and 9.9% of total deal activity respectively, compared to Texas' 8%. Texas, however, reclaimed its top spot in 2009 with 36 deals, accounting for 38.7% of the year's activity. Oklahoma has also proved to be a hot spot for energy investing, taking the second spot in 2007 with 9.5% and sharing the same rank with New York in 2009 with 10.8%. The top investors in these companies include ArcLight Capital Partners (46 deals), Riverstone Holdings (46), Energy Spectrum Capital (45) and The Carlyle Group (40).