Houston Chronicle

TELLURIAN’S MEG GENTLE SEES LIQUID GOLD IN LIQUID NATURAL GAS

TOMLINSON PLASTICS POLLUTION DEMANDS FAST SOLUTION

- Al Lewis Business editor al.lewis@chron.com @tellittoal

It is often just as difficult to pull off a small deal as it is a big one, so you might as well work on the big ones.

I don’t know if that’s true, having never worked on a tremendous­ly big deal, but someone once told me that, and it sounded wise.

In today’s Texas Inc., energy reporter Marissa Luck features a woman who makes big deals at least sound easy: Meg Gentle, the CEO of global liquid natural gas supplier Tellurian Inc. Read how she once saved a company from ruin by managing to close a $1.7 billion refinancin­g moments before the 2008 financial crisis locked up the banking system, how she raised $25 billion in the midst of the ensuing recession and how she is now raising the $20 billion of debt and $8 billion of equity.

Her vision for Tellurian is as equally staggering in scale. Her vision is for Tellurian to supply the world with 10 percent of its liquefied natural gas needs within the next 10 years.

Another big deal in today’s Texas Inc. involves the polarizing idea of universal health care. Our health care reporter Jenny Deam spoke with Dr. Arthur “Tim” Garson, director of the Health Policy Institute of the Texas Medical Center. He says that when the politics of bitter division falls to the wayside, some form of universal heath care will be the obvious solution. It’s already getting to be not such a bad phrase.

“The eventual goal is just like every other country in the world,” he said. “Everybody has that basic level of care. We’re the only people in the world who don’t have that.”

Repairing our broken health care system, however it’s done, will be a big deal.

Finally, read Chris Tomlinson’s column on another huge challenge: Plastics pollution. It’s up to many of us, here in Houston, to address this problem, since we are the city that is pumping out much of the world’s plastic. Tomlinson quotes Jim Fitterling, CEO of Dow Chemical: “There are no deniers out there that we have a plastics waste issue. Everybody has confronted that; everybody sees that issue and is willing to tackle it.”

These are big deals we’re writing about here in Texas Inc. And they sound a lot more daunting than the little ones. If any of you dealmakers have any thoughts on the challenges of small versus large deals, email me your thoughts. I know I once felt overwhelme­d by the process involved with just trying to refinance a rental house.

Welcome to Texas Inc.

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 ?? Brett Coomer / Staff photograph­er ?? Meg Gentle is president and CEO of Tellurian Inc., a company that is in the process of building a liquefied natural gas export terminal on the Gulf Coast.
Brett Coomer / Staff photograph­er Meg Gentle is president and CEO of Tellurian Inc., a company that is in the process of building a liquefied natural gas export terminal on the Gulf Coast.
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