Denver-based Petroleum Place Inc. plans to acquire Calgary- and Houston-based asset-sales and investment-banking firm Tristone Capital Advisors Inc. for C$101 million, giving Petroleum Place an energy investment-banking business and a Calgary asset-sales practice. The deal was expected to close by year-end. The combined companies will be renamed Petroleum Place Energy Advisors. Petroleum Place Inc., which owns the negotiated transaction business Petroleum Place Energy Advisors, the asset-auction business The Oil & Gas Asset Clearinghouse and enterprise-solutions business Petroleum Place Energy Solutions (P2ES), will reorganize. All Petroleum Place Inc. businesses will become part of the Petroleum Place Energy Advisors Inc. business. Petroleum Place Energy Advisors Inc. will have locations in Calgary, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Denver and Oklahoma City. Plans are under way to open an office in London. Gary Vickers, founder, president, chief executive and chairman of Petroleum Place Inc., will be chairman and CEO of the newly named parent company, while George Gosbee, founder and chief executive of Tristone Capital, will become president. Rob Bilger, currently president of Petroleum Place Energy Advisors, will be the managing director of U.S. acquisitions and divestitures. Ken Olive will be the managing director of auctions, which will expand into the Canadian marketplace. "This is a complementary fit that makes strategic, financial and business sense," says Gosbee. The combined team will now have more than 100 geologists and engineers on staff. Vickers says, "George Gosbee has done a tremendous job focusing Tristone Capital on its core service offerings and target markets. We intend to build on these successes...." Petroleum Place Energy Advisors Inc. board members will include new members Gosbee; John Hagg, founder, chairman and CEO of Northstar Energy Corp. and now with Tristone; Hank B. Swartout, chairman, president and CEO of Precision Drilling Corp.; Tarig Anani, president of Petroleum Place International and corporate general counsel; and Thomas Triplett, an attorney with Triplett Woolf & Garretson LLC. They will join current board members Vickers; Marc Cummins, managing director of Catterton Partners; James D. Fair, an independent oil and gas executive who has owned and operated several private oil and gas companies both in the U.S. and Canada; and Christopher W. Hunt, a representative of Anschutz Family Investment Co. -A&D Watch