In mid-2011 a small group of natural resource entrepreneurs made a killing when they sold their European shale explorer to San Leon Energy for $139 million.
That company was Realm Energy and was debuted at $0.10 per share in 2009. Fast forward 2 years and they sold the company for the $1.30 per share in cash and shares which represented a 116% premium to the previous day's close at the time.
San Leon's largest shareholders include George Soros and Toscafunds.
Today, this same group of entrepreneurs, which includes Ian Telfer, the Chairman of Goldcorp and Craig Steinke, the former CEO of Realm, have begun trading their newest energy creation; Renaissance Oil Corp (SAN:TSXV).
Telfer and Steinke merged their private company, R2 Energy, into the publically-listed San Antonio Ventures in a reverse takeover transaction (RTO).
At their AGM on September 12th Telfer and Steinke will ask shareholders to approve a 2-for-1 consolidation as well as to formally change the company's name to Renaissance Oil from San Antonio Ventures.
R2 Energy recently completed a $5 million equity raise for units at $0.30 with a 5-year $0.50 full warrant.
Once the consolidation is completed, the company will have 47 million shares outstanding.
Telfer and Steinke will own 24.76% and 16.04% on a partially diluted basis, respectively. Casey Capital Strategies LLC (Doug Casey and Marin Katusa) will own 22.95% on the same basis.
Gordon Keep, CEO of Fiore Advisory, was also named to the board.
The plan is to repeat the success they had with Realm but on a potentially larger scale.
The duo are aiming to target new shale oil and gas opportunities in Mexico; the country that until recently has been closed to foreign direct investment in its energy sector.
Only 5,100 exploratory wells were drilled in Mexico in the past 76 years yet the country is estimated to hold as much oil and gas as Saudi Arabia.
The opportunities to apply cutting-edge technologies in these Mexican fields have many investors, analysts, E&Ps and service companies salivating.
In early 2009, Realm Energy began a strategic partnership with Halliburton (one of the world's largest oilfield service companies) whereby Halliburton would assist Realm in identifying, evaluating and ultimately developing shale plays across Europe.
Renaissance may look to revive this relationship in order to utilize Halliburton's leading technical expertise in developing these types of fields.
In Spain, Renaissance Oil has been the successful bidder on approximately 1.3 million acres of lands, that the company believes could host shale oil and gas.
The company was one of the most actively traded stocks on the exchange Friday with over 10 million shares being bought and sold. Shares hit a high of $0.265 before closing up $0.10( or 77%) to close Friday at $0.23 per share.
Shares opened at $0.24 today.
Read: San Antonio Ventures Inc. Announces Closing of Reverse Take-over with R2 Energy Ltd.
Disclosure: I am long R2 Energy and as a result am biased. Always do your own due diligence.