Who is Francesco Mazzagatti ?
Francesco Mazzagatti‚ the founder and CEO of the London-based Viaro Energy‚ became one of the highest paid executives in UK oil and gas.
Francesco Mazzagatti‚ the founder and CEO of the London-based Viaro Energy‚ became one of the highest paid executives in UK oil and gas.
Decades before Francesco Mazzagatti‚ the founder and CEO of the London-based Viaro Energy‚ became one of the highest paid executives in UK oil and gas‚ he was pushing crates of fruit out of a converted olive oil depot in rural Italy.
He grew up in Polistena‚ Calabria‚ one of Italy’s poorest regions; his father‚ who drove lorries‚ ran a small one-vehicle logistics business․ At age 18‚ Mazzagatti asked his parents for documents to incorporate a company for his birthday․ Pascal SAS was founded days later and named after his elder brother who had died eight years earlier․ In 2007‚ that company made the first installment on the purchase of a shuttered olive oil depot in Gioia Tauro. The plan was to build a modern distribution center like the ones operating in northern Italy․ Supported by government funds‚ the depot became the core of a small fruit and juice distribution business․
In 2012, Napag Italia was formed as a new company established specifically to take the family's fruit and juice trade into import and export markets. In 2014, Napag became involved in oil and petrochemical trading across Europe and the Middle East․
At some point in his career, Mazzagatti went to London Business School to study sustainability and corporate responsibility‚ and did an MBA at Buckinghamshire New University․
Those commodity trading relationships opened up the possibility of investing in underlying assets․ Mazzagatti’s commodity trading network led him‚ between 2018 and 2020‚ to being appointed as a director at Alliance Petrochemical Investment‚ a company registered in Singapore‚ thus further expanding his interest in petrochemicals․ Viaro Energy, his primary vehicle for direct ownership of oil and gas producing assets, was founded in 2020.
The same year‚ Viaro Energy acquired RockRose Energy for approximately £247․6 million‚ which added producing assets and a seasoned operating team․ Successive acquisitions‚ made between 2021 and 2023‚ further expanded Viaro Energy's footprint in both the UK and Dutch North Sea․ Today‚ Mazzagatti’s Viaro Energy is an independent oil and gas company that has a portfolio of mainly non-operated joint ventures in gas-producing fields․ According to the firm, Viaro Energy accounts for around 9% of UK gas production on a gross basis.