SENIOR CONSULTANTS
Robert Erwin
Mr. Erwin is a founding principal of Aeicon Corporation Limited, an international consultancy investment banking firm. He has 25 years of worldwide advisory and project finance experience encompassing over USD 11 billion in transactions for energy, infrastructure and commercial real-estate assets in Asia, Australia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Mexico and the USA.
He is also founder of Aeicon Finanzas SA de CV (USD 800 million energy infrastructure financing platform), Aeicon MaxEn Partnership, LP, a US-based private equity firm, EPIC Clean Technologies Corporation (EPIC) (www.epiccleantech.com), MaxEn Asia Holdings Limited, MaxEn Capital Advisors Limited (www.maxencapital.com) and MaxWest Environmental Systems, Inc. See (www.maxwestenergy.com).
MaxEn Capital Advisors Limited is a member of the US-China Energy Co-operation Program and Mr. Erwin serves as its representative to the US-China ECP Clean Coal Working Group and its Energy Finance and Investment Working Group. He is an advisory director of Ruilin Holdings Ltd. Foundation, a member of the Board of Directors of EPIC and the United States Rugby Football Foundation and a member of the Explorers Club (NY).
Personal Project Advisory and Financing/Investment Experience:
Project Name Country Summary Deal Size
Torno & Vialco Argentina Prison for Ministry of Justice $92 mn
APEL Australia Coal to liquids project in Victoria
$3 bn
Odebrecht Mexico Offshore platform for PEMEX
$163mn
TTK Wireless Brazil Local engineering company $12 mn
Odebrecht Mexico Offshore platform for PEMEX $163 mn
Ovalle & Moore Chile O&M contracting for Methanex $25 mn
Edison /Mission
China Sale of power assets in China
$60 mn
Liaoning Energy Co. China J/V acquisition of power equipment
$101 mn
Rozneftegaztroy China/Rus. Natural gas pipeline to China $ 6 bn
Doosan Power
Europe Investment in coal gasification
$ 15 mn
Ashanti Gold Ghana Lease financing $25 mn
Karatau JSC Kazakhstan Rehab of ferro /manganese facility
$127 mn
Bufete Industrial Mexico Operating concessions for PEMEX
$186 mn
Enron Eng. & Const
Mexico JV financing for PEMEX
$200 mn
Degremont/Marubeni Mexico PEMEX Wastewater treatment plant $52 mn
Mepoltec Mexico Methanol production facility $300 mn
Petroleos Mexicanos Mexico Working capital loans to contractors
$600 mn
PPyPSA
Mexico Turnkey power facilities for CFE
$140 mn
Tribassa Mexico JV working capital
$62 mn
Ittehad Chemical Pakistan Turnkey power plant $78 mn
Greenwich Turbines Senegal Turnkey power plant
$52 mn
Uganda Electric Uganda Turnkey power station $52 mn
EPIC Clean Tech.
USA Corporate and project finance $40 mn
MaxWest USA Corporate growth capital $20 mn
Richard E. Heien
MaxEn Capital Advisors Limited
MaxEn Capital Advisors was formed to provide advisory services and a platform for investing in technology companies and alternative energy related projects. Representative transactions included:
MaxWest Environmental Systems, Inc.
Co-founder, board member, and President of the MaxWest, which provided turnkey build, own and operate solutions for disposal of municipal waste water treatment sludge by gasification via a patented and proprietary gasification process. The company was founded in 2007, started up the first commercial system in 2008, and sold to Leaf Clean Energy Company in 2010 at 13x of original investment.
Aeicon MaxEn Partnership, AMP – Co-Trustee of AMP, a co-founding investor partnership of EPIC Clean Technologies Corporation (EPIC) – Mr. Heien also served as co-founder and a current board member of EPIC, a technology company which provides patented and proprietary coal gasification and sulfur clean up technology for power and energy related application.
Vice President – Enron Engineering and Construction
Established a third party service group which partnered with in-country companies in Mexico providing construction financing, engineering, procurement and construction for over $600,000,000 of offshore and onshore energy projects over 36 months. Project Portfolio averaged 9 ½ % profit margins on contract value with 100% repayment of construction financing. Representative projects included:
- Akal Production Platform – Construction financing, engineering, procurement, fabrication and installation of production platform. Value: $22,000,000
- Rig Refurbishment – Construction financing and refurbishment of two offshore drilling rigs for Pemex. Value: $30,000,000.
- Offshore pipeline hookup – Construction financing for two offshore hookup contracts including engineering, procurement and installation: Value: $ 60,000,000.
- Pipeline Installation – Construction financing and construction of 1100 KM of 24 crude oil pipelines. Value: $ 108,000,000.
- Refinery Construction – Construction financing and upgrade construction of certain facilities at the Caytrata and Madero refineries. Value: $50,000,000.
- Platform Living Quarters – Construction financing, engineering, procurement, fabrication and installation of four (4) offshore living quarters. Value: $273,000,000.
- Offshore Pipeline Installation – Construction financing and installation of multiple pipeline installation for Pemex in the Bay of Campeche. Value: $109,000,000.
- Corporate Financing – Corporate working capital financing for the third largest engineering and construction company in Mexico. Value: $30,000,000
Northern Engineering Inc. (NEI)
NEI was a consulting, full disciple engineering, turnkey contracting and project development company specializing in cogeneration, independent power, alternative energy and downstream oil and gas facilities located in Houston Texas. Mr Heien, acquired the company in 1986, and as majority owner and Chief Executive Officer, grew the company from a consulting company with less than a $1,000,000 to over $100,000,000 in service revenues and sold in 1990 to Agra Industries, 2nd largest Canadian engineering group, at 20x original investment. Representative projects include:
- Texas City Union Carbide Cogeneration Plant – 450 MW cogeneration facility providing power and steam to chemical processing facility in Texas City Texas.
- Teeside Cogeneration Plant – 2500 MW cogeneration facility in Teeside, England. The largest power facility of its kind at the time.
- Texas Tech University Cogeneration Plant- 25 MW cogeneration providing power and steam to a university in Lubbock, Texas
- Syracuse University Cogeneration Plant- 60 MW cogeneration facility providing power and steam to university in Syracuse, NY.
- Milford Power Station – 150 MW independent power facility providing power to local grid in Milford, Massachusetts
- Guatemala Power Facility – 60 MW barge mounted power plant located in Guatemala.
Howard Margulis
Howard Margulis is a Senior Managing Director and leads the New York office of MaxEn Capital. Mr. Margulis is a licensed attorney in three (3) states and numerous federal courts and a recognized industry advisor and global financial transaction specialist across the full spectrum of global energy, natural resources, agribusiness and selected technology and infrastructure development deals, including domestic and international mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, project, corporate and private equity financings and development matters, and competitive markets and technology applications. Mr. Margulis has experience structuring and negotiating energy, mining, oil and gas, agribusiness, computer technology, telecommunications and other infrastructure transactions, such as acquisitions, project loans, production sharing agreements, offtake agreements, capital market debt facilities, acquisition finance arrangements, private equity financings, structured/asset-backed financings, risk management instruments, hedging and commodity arrangements and infrastructure technology development. He has particular experience in natural resource transactions as well as alternative energy technology matters, including clean-tech, waste-to-energy and renewable energy opportunities, having negotiated and obtained approval of a power purchase agreement for the first-of-its-kind commercial-scale biomass gasification power plant in the United States, developed the power purchase agreement for the largest proposed solar thermal storage project in the world, completed the investment capital transaction for leading coal-gasification technology for small power production between Chinese state-owned-enterprises and Peabody Energy and acted as lead investment banker in the sale of the a hydropower station system in upstate New York to Hudson Clean Energy Partners. Howard also led the largest single capital investment into advanced algae-derived biofuels, a USD $90 mm investment into a U.S. algae production technology firm by an Asian petrochemical concern. Recently, Howard led the negotiations for the sale of the world’s single largest LNG offtake arrangement (USD $ 50 billion) – Chevron’s sale from its tenements in the massive Australia Gorgon Field to Osaka Gas of Japan. Currently, Howard is acting in several technology and energy/biofuel projects involving ethanol, geothermal energy in Germany, algae-derived nutritional supplements, potash mining, advanced computer and sports/media technology systems and development of greenfield oil and gas resources in Africa. He has developed international transaction expertise across Africa, Latin America, the United States, Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia including private capital, mergers and public offerings. He has acted for some of the largest power, mining, agriculture, technology development and petroleum companies in the world and maintains a global network of strategic capital and industrial relationships. He was formerly a member of the Energy Practice Group at Skadden, Arps and other global law firms. He graduated from Northwestern University (B.A. History, cum laude) and IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law (J.D., cum laude). He is a member of the Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU) and the Executive Board of the America Israel Friendship League and the U.S. China Business Council.
Janet Lee
Janet Lee is currently a Business Manager with over 14 years of experience across multiple sectors, including property and casualty insurance, residential real estate and construction and renewable energy. She received her Bachelors of Arts in Business Administration, with a focus on Organizational Behavior from University of Washington. Janet was brought on to work for MaxWest Environmental Systems as a project analyst and was instrumental during the startup process. She was responsible for gathering and analyzing data to support waste to energy projects, submitting grant applications, preparing marketing proposals, managing the office infrastructure and day to day operations, accounts payable and accounts receivable, and monitoring project budgets and deliverables. Prior to joining MaxWest, Janet worked for Safeco Insurance Company as a Diversity Analyst creating solutions on how to reach underserved markets, analyzing and reporting on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and executing the organization’s diversity initiatives.
Brian Heien
Brian Heien brings more than 18 years of experience in business and financial analysis for energy related and infrastructure projects. Prior to joining MaxEn Capital, Brian worked for Reliant Energy and NRG in business systems analysis, analyzing complex business/commercial structures and managing new projects and teams including customer relations, Smart Energy, solar, demand response and distributed generation, as well as in the development of key management reporting tools.
Prior to joining Reliant Energy, Brian worked for Merrill Lynch as an associate in financial analysis and owned and managed a national bulletin board system. Brian holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Economics and a Bachelor of Business Administration with a specialty in Finance from the University of Houston, as well as a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Texas A & M University.
He currently serves as Vice President of Financial Analysis for the MaxEn group of companies, managing due diligence processes, development of financial projections, information technology and documentation.
Ali Abbasi, P.Eng., Ph.D.
Dr. Abbasi serves as Vice President – Engineering and Process Technology of EPIC. He has over 25 years of experience in positions with progressively increasing responsibility in management & oversight of engineering of international projects. His professional duties international Engineering & Operating companies and EPC contractors are in managing development and financing support activities for alternative energy solutions, including Refining, Petrochemical/Chemical, LNG, Gasification, Fluid catalytic cracking (FCC).
Prior experience includes full charge responsibilities, senior project development & management and engineering while working with McDermott, Black & Veatch, KBR Inc. Dr. Abbasi’s experience includes project development and engineering management responsibilities in the USA, Canada, Korea, China, and Middle East Countries.