TREVOR BURGESS CV Lime Rock chief expects year of progress in 2012

Despite the continued gyrations in global stock markets, Mr Burgess is sure it will be a good year for Lime Rock.

"As we go into 2012 I would say bankers' money is going to again be few and far between. We see a time of uncertainty and that can create opportunities," he tells The Herald.

"For example, I think some companies will start to be a bit more realistic about their value, because in 2011 it's been a period of some exuberant valuations."

A veteran of big jobs with the giant oil services firms Schlumberger and Expro, Mr Burgess believes the wave of mergers and acquisitions and reorganisations that has swept the oil and gas industry may prompt some people who would be well worth backing to go their own way.

"When people get moved around in companies it tends to make them more innovative, they tend to think maybe this is not what I want to do, I'll maybe start a new business and do it better," says Mr Burgess.

As the head of Lime Rock's technology investment team Mr Burgess has a roving brief. This suits a man whose work in the oil and gas industry has provided a passport to travel to interesting places that are a world away from the council house he grew up in in Hastings in Sussex.

However, he expects to find opportunities to add more Aberdeen firms to a portfolio which already includes businesses like EnerMech, the acquisitive engineering firm which offers services ranging from crane design to pipeline testing.

With a first class degree in maths and a PhD in geo-statistics from Oxford University, Mr Burgess is probably better equipped than many to assess the probabilities that attach to varying scenarios for the North Sea's future.

He believes there is still a fair chance that there are more big finds to be made in the North Sea. Continued interest in the area among exploration and production firms will help underpin the standing of Aberdeen, and Stavanger in Norway, as hubs for the services business in which technologies will be developed for use around world.

The 57-year-old takes a phlegmatic approach to the surprise hike in tax in the March Budget, which industry players have grumbled about ever since.

"I think it's going to effect some E&P (exploration and production) investments but they will tend to be the companies that are beyond the scope of what we would invest in," he reckons. "I haven't seen any reduction in opportunities for us to look at since that came into play – our deal log is no smaller now than it was before."

The increase will affect some bigger firms but Mr Burgess does not appear to share the concerns of those critics of the tax rise who have warned it could prompt firms to slash investment in the UK North Sea.

"The Government changing the tax regime does probably stop some investment in the country because it creates uncertainty, but as far as we're concerned I can tell you that we have not seen any significant difference yet," he adds.

"It's easy in the oil business to get on the bandwagon and beat the Government for everything but in our case I've not seen any significant difference in deal flow."

Asked if the industry perhaps cried wolf about the tax increase, he said: "We've got to do a better job of looking after our image and you know when people see the profits that Shell and BP make and then complain about the Government's taxation it..." he pauses, searching for the right words, before adding: "I guess people don't realise how much investment is needed to develop a field, the sort of long-term risk that oil and gas companies are taking and they see the huge price of petrol at the petrol pump and they think that everyone is making out like a bandit but you know that's not necessarily true."

Mr Burgess believes the UK could pay a high price if it fails to nurture the North Sea.

"People need to realise that oil and gas is here to stay, our economies are dependent on it and we need to invest in it. Goodness knows I don't want to be dependent on Russian gas."

Talking in the firm's well-appointed offices in Aberdeen's professional quarter, Mr Burgess says investors like Lime Rock can play a valuable role by supporting the development of growth companies.

He admits the private equity industry may have had a bad press in recent years but believes Lime Rock should not be tarred with the same brush as firms that pursue a very different approach.

"Private equity in some areas gets a bit of a bad rap. If you look in the Sunday papers people associate private equity with what I would call leveraged debt deals, where you take on a load of debt on the company and then you make it essentially spend all its profits on paying back the debt. We don't do that.

"We're looking for growth and what we do is we put our money into equity, we use very, very little debt. If we're putting the money into equity what it means is we can see a start-up company through business cycles. We're in for the long run."

Mr Burgess suggests that the approach followed by growth capital investors offers a fairer division of the rewards among stakeholders than the LBO model.

"We're in growth and what I like about it myself is it's really about job creation. If we can grow a company five or ten times that's fantastic, it creates a lot of local employment and a lot of opportunity."

The maths ace concludes with an observation that seems to rely more on plain common sense than scholarship.

"There's been a tendency in the past to borrow too much money and get into debt, and by the way, isn't that the problem with the economy these days?"

l Born: 1954 in Hastings.

l Education: Hastings Grammar School.

Oxford University. First class degree in mathematics and PhD in geo-statistics.

l Career:

1979-99 Schulmberger. Progressed from working as a field engineer in Africa to being Vice-president of the solutions division based in Houston.

1999-2005 Baker Hughes, Houston. Ran the Hughes Christensen drill bit business

2005-2009 Expro Group director marketing and technology.

2009 Joined Lime Rock Partners as a managing director.

l Married with three children.