Former BP Chief Hayward Plans to Raise $1.64 Billion in Oil Fund Offering

Former BP Plc (BP/) Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward will raise 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in an initial public offering to target oil acquisitions in “emerging and under-developed” regions.

Backed by financier Nathaniel Rothschild and veteran Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) banker Julian Metherell, the investment vehicle known as Vallares Plc will seek to buy a company or asset with an enterprise value of 3 billion to 8 billion pounds within two years, according to Hayward.

“There could be significant interest,” said Gianna Bern, president of Chicago-based Brookshire Advisory and Research Inc. “There is no shortage of small-cap emerging market companies that could utilize Vallares because the public market capital raising process has become onerous and extremely expensive.”

Vallares has a “pipeline of potential deals” and will focus on emerging markets such as Russia, Latin America, Africa or the Middle East, Hayward said in an interview, without identifying any specific targets.

“Many high quality international resource assets have been acquired by family owned or private companies in the last few years,” Hayward said today in a statement. “We will have the cash, access to funds and the capability to unlock value where the current owners have neither the capital nor technical expertise to develop the assets.”

Copyright 2011, Bloomberg. All rights reserved.