Nicholas Sutton has remained out of the daily E&P fray since he sold Denver-based HS Resources to Kerr-McGee Corp. (NYSE: KMG) in 2001 for $1.8 billion. That sale marked the high point in a solid track record of creating growth after taking HS public in 1992, primarily based on gas drilling in the Denver-Julesberg Basin and Oklahoma. But now Sutton is back, forming Resolute Natural Resources Co., with offices in San Francisco where he lives and in Denver and Tulsa. Resolute is backed by private equity firm Natural Gas Partners. An NGP principal, Ken Hersh, was formerly on the HS board of directors. Sutton is not releasing the amount of the financial commitment. Additional seed capital is being provided by Resolute's senior management team, most of whom were executives at HS. "It's been fun starting this and getting back in the game," Sutton says. "But we certainly have a lot of work to do. I reflect that it is not an easy time, but over the last 20 years it has never been easy [to execute a plan]." Initially Resolute will focus on buying and aggregating properties, as the old HS did in Colorado's Wattenberg Field a decade ago. "We will apply new technologies and marry the incentives of operating with gas gathering and processing," Sutton says. "There is no real restriction on geography, other than we will stay in North America and not focus on exploration." The acquire-and-exploit strategy that Resolute will pursue is still viable, he notes. "Just as Amoco sold off properties to create opportunities for HS, HS sold assets to create opportunities for smaller companies. Now in 2004, Resolute will be evaluating properties, targeting areas that for whatever reason have been underutilized, that have not been maximized for different reasons. "We seek properties that have been undervalued from an emotional as well as capital standpoint." Resolute plans to conduct its business from multiple locations because Sutton thinks it becomes difficult to manage from a central place. First hiring of accounting, engineering and operations personnel will take place in Denver. "These days it is so easy to be on a common electronic platform to manage all that we do. Certainly we are on the phone constantly. Today we can all look at the same cross-section or seismic data on the computer at the same time. The need for face-to-face is minimized because we formed the new company with people who were senior officers at HS, or as with Richard Betz [vice president of corporate development], he was an investment banker at JP Morgan Chase who worked on every major financing HS did." Resolute can be reached at 609-375-2281.