Trive Capital Announces the Sale of Core Appalachia to Diversified Gas & Oil

Trive Capital (“Trive”), the Dallas-based private equity firm, has sold one of its portfolio companies, Core Appalachia (“Core” or the “Company”), to Diversified Gas & Oil Plc (“Diversified”) for $183 million in cash and stock consideration, which was announced on October 11, 2018.

Core Appalachia, based in Charleston, West Virginia, was founded in 2016 with the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Chesapeake Energy Corporation’s Southern Appalachian Division. The Company operates over 5,000 producing wells in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia across 1.3 million net acres supported by over 4,000 miles of Company-owned gathering pipeline and midstream assets.

During Trive’s ownership, Core created significant value by successfully optimizing its expansive gathering network and marketing functions, targeting strategic workover and recompletion candidates, and launching a development program of its Lower Huron and Berea acreage.

Blake Bonner, Partner at Trive, stated, “Trive is pleased to join Core in announcing this exciting realization just over eighteen months into our ownership period. We have enjoyed a very productive relationship with the Core team in which they worked tirelessly to unlock value by optimizing the asset in a short period of time. This symbiotic partnership allowed for Trive’s experience in executing complex carve out transactions to complement Core’s background operating similar upstream and midstream assets in the region. We believe the impressive performance of the Core team led to a very good outcome for all involved as the assets are ideally positioned for continued growth under Diversified’s ownership.”

“Trive has been instrumental in helping us carve out, expand and optimize the assets in our Chesapeake transaction,” said Core Appalachia President and CEO Jim Rode. “With Trive’s support, we successfully identified and executed several optimization projects in an otherwise forgotten basin. These initiatives led to a stabilization of production and midstream operations in a long-lived conventional asset base, all with the backdrop of volatile commodity prices. We view this transaction as a key milestone in the evolution of the Southern Appalachian basin and are excited to partner with Diversified for the next phase of both companies’ collective growth.”

Conner Searcy, Managing Partner at Trive, added “The success of our partnership with Core highlights another great example of what can occur when a management team and capital partner collaboratively execute on a strategic plan. We remain excited about the industry and look forward to continued investment alongside disciplined and experienced oil and gas teams.”