Esperanza Capital Partners Gets Help from Cockrell Interests
Posted on 08/28/2021
Esperanza Capital Partners is a private investment firm founded in 2021 by industry and investment professionals David M. Dunwoody, Jr. and William H. Goodwin alongside investment firm Cockrell Interests, LLC. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Esperanza Capital Partners targets the acquisition of high-quality energy and infrastructure assets located in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Prior to Esperanza Capital Partners, Dunwoody was Co-founder and President of EnVen Energy Corporation, an independent operator in the Gulf of Mexico, and Goodwin was a Partner at Millennial Energy Partners, an energy investment firm and direct asset manager.
Created in 1957, Cockrell is a Houston-based, family-owned investment firm with 70 years of investment experience in asset classes including private equity, agriculture, real estate, venture capital, public equities, and credit. The Cockrell family is a fifth generation Houston family with almost a century of experience in the oil & gas business including substantial exploration, development, operating, and investment experience offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Ernest H. Cockrell (“Ernie”) is chairman of Cockrell Interests LLC, a diversified asset holding company, and president and director of The Cockrell Foundation, a private charitable foundation. After joining the family oil and gas company and filling various field and office positions, he spent 30 years leading Cockrell Oil Corporation. Ernie Cockrell is a founder and past director of Amegy Bank of Texas and is a member of the All-American Wildcatters Association.
A product of the U.S. great depression, Ernest Cockrell Jr. was a self-made entrepreneur, as was his father before him. After working a short time for Texaco, Ernest Cockrell Jr. formed both an oil company, Producer’s Oil, and a drilling work-over company. When his father passed away in 1947, Ernest Cockrell Jr. also took over his father’s oil business. Ernest Cockrell Jr. died in 1972.
Advisors
Michael De Voe Piazza and Will Thanheiser from Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP provided legal counsel to Esperanza Capital Partners in connection with the formation of Esperanza Capital Partners. Creighton Smith and Bobbi Ingram of Vinson & Elkins LLP provided legal counsel to Cockrell in connection with its investment in Esperanza Capital Partners.