Charlesbank Capital Partners Sells Regency Gas Services to Hicks, Muse

Business Wire, Dec 1, 2004

BOSTON -- Charlesbank Capital Partners has announced the sale of Regency Gas Services, a Dallas-based midstream natural gas service company, to Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, in a transaction valued at $405 million. Regency was formed in May 2003 with equity backing from Charlesbank. The company's business founders comprise natural gas industry veterans David Biegler, Jim Bryant, Doug Dormer, Mike Hunter and Mack Lawrence.

"Consistent with our strategy as a firm, we backed a deeply experienced management team and have worked closely with them to build Regency into a substantial participant in the geographies in which they operate," says Michael R. Eisenson, managing director of Charlesbank Capital Partners.

In its inaugural acquisition, Regency purchased gas gathering, processing, treating and transmission pipeline assets from El Paso Field Services, then a unit of El Paso Corp. These assets are principally located in Kansas, Oklahoma and North Louisiana. Subsequently, a second acquisition brought West Texas gathering and processing assets into the company in a purchase from Duke Energy.

With the Regency acquisition, Hicks Muse acquires a midstream platform business encompassing 3,000 miles of pipeline, 115,000 horsepower of compression and five gas processing plants, with aggregate processing capacity of 330 million cubic feet of gas per day. Total gas throughput for the company is currently 450 million cubic feet per day.

"We and our management partners accomplished our objectives in creating Regency," said Mr. Eisenson. "Regency has been a successful investment for us, and we believe that the company has both the people and the assets to support continued strong growth under new ownership."

Charlesbank Capital Partners, LLC, is a private investment firm with more than $1 billion of capital under management. The company focuses on middle-market management-led buyouts and growth capital financings, typically investing $20 to $75 million per transaction in companies with enterprise values of $50 to $750 million. Charlesbank seeks to partner with strong management teams and other value-added investors to build companies with real competitive advantage and excellent prospects for growth. The firm has offices in Boston and New York. For more information on Charlesbank, visit www.charlesbank.com.