Board of Epic Energy Holdings
Bruce McKay
Non-executive Chairman
Bruce McKay is the external Chairman of Epic Holdings and brings a wealth of experience from his roles as a director and senior executive across the resource sector and his numerous years as an oil and gas industry professional. Between 1968 and 1992, Mr McKay worked in international oil and gas exploration and production with Esso and Exxon affiliates. This included time as Chief Executive Officer of Delhi Petroleum and as General Manager Production for Esso Australia. After leaving Esso, Mr McKay was appointed Director of Personnel at Telstra and then moved on in 1994 to become Chief Executive and Head of School of the Australian Graduate School of Engineering Innovation, a role he held until 1997. Mr McKay is a non-executive Chairman of Australian Worldwide Exploration. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and of the Institute of Engineers Australia and an Honorary Life Member of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association.
Steve Banning
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Steve Banning was appointed Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Epic Energy in August 2007.
Mr Banning has extensive experience in the Australian gas market gained from a successful career in key commercial roles.
Mr Banning has an extensive background in technical marketing and business development across Australia and the United Kingdom and has spent the last eight years working in upstream and midstream commercial roles in the Australian energy market. During this time, Mr Banning was responsible for the commercial performance of the Eastern, Tasmanian and Queensland gas pipelines on behalf of Duke Energy International (Duke) and then Alinta. Before commencing with Duke, he held business development roles with ExxonMobil Gas Marketing, focusing on gas and ethane sales.
Michael Williams B.E. (Chem) Hons, C.Eng., F.I.Chem.E., FAICD
Director
Michael Williams was born and educated in Australia, graduating in Chemical Engineering with Honours from the University of Queensland.
He joined Shell in 1968 at the Geelong Refinery in Australia. He was first involved in gas & LNG when he spent a period in Brunei in 1973 during the start-up of the LNG plant. He has subsequently worked on Shell LNG projects in Brunei, Malaysia, Australia, Venezuela and Sakhalin and in the Shell Central Offices in The Hague and London. His experience in LNG projects and natural gas spans the range of activities from conceptual planning, detail planning, to project start-up and operation. He was Managing Director of Shell Gas & Power in North East Asia where his responsibilities included the development of strategy and the development of LNG import terminals in China and in Taiwan to allow the introduction of LNG for power generation and distribution as town gas
Since retiring from Shell in 2001, he has provided consulting advice to Governments and companies in Australia, United Kingdom, USA, Russia and China.
He is also consults to Gas Strategies Ltd, a major consultancy giving advice in gas, LNG and energy.
He is also a Director of Epic Energy Holdings.
Ian Court
Non-executive director
Ian currently holds non-executive director positions with Pacific Hydro Pty Ltd, Victorian Funds Management Corporation, Slater and Gordon Ltd, Bennelong Funds Management Pty Ltd and is Chair of an Investor Advisory Board for Industry Funds Management Pty Ltd. He has previously held senior executive positions in Funds Management and Superannuation including CEO of Development Australia Fund Management Ltd (DAF) and Executive Chair of Cbus, the Building Industry Superannuation Fund. He was senior industrial officer of the ACTU from 1984-1994.
Previous directorships held were in companies in the unlisted infrastructure, private equity, property and superannuation sectors, including director of Utilities of Australia Pty Ltd, Australian Venture Capital Association Ltd, director of Federal Airports Corporation, director of Australian Prime Property Fund Custodian Pty Ltd, deputy chair of ISPT Pty Ltd and director of Ecogen Holdings Pty Ltd.
Mike Hutchinson BSc (Hons), CP Eng
Director
Mike is a qualified civil engineer, educated at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, and Harvard Business School. He was formerly an international transport engineering consultant with experience in the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Africa, South East Asia and the Pacific. From 1980 to 1999 he was a senior official with the Australian Government, mainly working in the transport and communications sectors. He worked closely on reform of the Australian Government's state-owned enterprise sector from 1987 to 1996 and was acting Managing Director of the former OTC Ltd in 1989. He led the government's major privatisation program over the period 1996 to 1999, including Telstra, ANL Ltd, Australian National and most of Australia's airports, and he worked closely on the regulation of privatised infrastructure. Since 2000 he has practised as a private consultant and company director. He has been a trustee of the Australian Government's superannuation schemes and a consultant to a global investment bank.
Mike is currently on the board of Hastings Funds Management Limited, the Australian Infrastructure Fund Limited and the Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund.
Steve Boulton BBus, MTM, GAICD, FAIM, CMAHRI
Director
Steve Boulton was appointed to the role of Chief Executive of Hastings in September 2007. Prior to this role, Steve held the position of Chief Executive of Babcock & Brown Infrastructure and its Fund Manager, with assets spread globally across three continents. Steve was Chairman/Director of each of the major fund investments in the broad portfolio which included electricity and gas transmission and distribution, seaports, power generation and rail networks.
Steve has also held Chief Executive roles with Powerco Limited, an electricity and gas distribution utility which he led through an IPO onto the NZX and with Allgas, a natural gas and LPG distribution and retailing entity listed on the ASX. In these CEO roles Steve grew the funds/assets under management, business ownership and operations by leading a range of mergers and acquisition transactions in the infrastructure and utility sectors with exposure to both equity and debt capital markets.
Steve has held a range of executive and management positions including roles in ENERGEX and Shell Coal. He has management experience in listed, unlisted and public utilities through his 30 year career. Steve holds a Bachelor of Business and a Masters of Technology Management and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management.
Steve is currently a Director of Australian Infrastructure Fund Limited, Australia Pacific Airports Corporation Limited, Westpac Funds Management Limited, Westpac Funds Management Administration Limited, WOT CMBS Pty Ltd and WOT Loan Note Pty Ltd.
Colin Atkin
Non-executive director
Colin Atkin is the Chief Operating Officer of Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund, the 100% owner of Epic Energy. Colin joined Hastings Funds Management in October 2008 as an Investment Director in the Infrastructure team with over 20 years of domestic and international finance market experience and more than a decade focused on the infrastructure and utilities sector.
Prior to joining Hastings, Colin spent seven years with the international credit rating agency Standard & Poor's culminating his tenure as a Director of Fund Ratings and a Director within the Corporate and Infrastructure credit rating group. His scope of experience and responsibility included rating domestic and international infrastructure funds. Colin's specialist credit rating coverage included water, gas and electricity utilities, airports, seaports, road, rail, telecommunications and oil and gas extractive industries. Before joining Standard & Poor's in 2001, Colin worked for Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein in the European investment banking and debt capital market, involved in corporate and utility industries where he worked with a number of infrastructure and utility companies including those participating in the first regulatory reset for water and sewage companies.
In addition to his role as Chief Operating Officer of Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund, Colin has responsibilities and Directorships for a number of Hastings investee companies.
Colin holds a Master of Business Administration and is a Graduate and Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
