IT'S the romantic notion most readily associated with retirement. But for Leon Walker, the 55-year-old head of oil technology firm PGS EM, sailing off into the sunset is likely to prove more than a pipedream.
It's little more than 15 months since the company came into being, following the $275 million (£150m) sale of Edinburgh University spin-out business MTEM to Norwegian group Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS). The EM part of the new business stands for elec
tromagnetic, the Scottish firm's area of expertise.
Walker was one of four founder members of MTEM who shared in a multi-million-dollar cash and shares payout following the deal. Collectively, the four held an 18 per cent stake in the three-year-old spin-out.
Having overseen MTEM's integration into PGS, Walker now has one eye on a future beyond petroleum, as a certain oil major might say. Confident that the local outpost of the Norwegian parent's sprawling network (PGS has offices in 22 countries) will end up in capable hands, the oil industry veteran is keen for a change of pace.
"I think I'll be here until the end of next year," he confides. "Then I'll have done my bit. "It's always good to step aside and let someone else have a go and don't lurk around in the background second-guessing them. I really will go off and walk up Everest, or certainly get to base camp!"
A more likely choice of pursuit come retirement day involves tacking and winching rather than clawing and abseiling. "I plan to go sailing round the Mediterranean," Walker adds. "I've got a house in the south of France and must get round to building my garden shed. It's been in pieces for two years.
"There are plenty of things I've never had the time to do and have to do before I get too old."
Until he boards his yacht and charts a course south, Walker will continue to play a pivotal role at PGS. Expansion – an unfashionable word during these credit-squeezed times – remains a key aim of the business.
A recent move to new premises in the west of Edinburgh from an office building in the Sciennes area of the city will allow the firm to house additional personnel. Birch House, on which PGS EM has taken a ten-year lease, is currently home to 50 staff, although there is space for almost twice that number.
Effectively, the Sighthill base is the new "world headquarters" for the electromagnetic services arm of PGS. Another 40 or so people operate out of satellite offices in Aberdeen, Calgary and Houston and on offshore and onshore installations worldwide.
"You move the client-facing bit to wherever you have hot prospects," Walker explains, noting that the firm has geo- scientists working in Kuala Lumpur and Canada.
"Gradually, the operational side will spread out around the larger company and we'll keep the electromagnetic research and development work here."
The technology developed by MTEM is capable of distinguishing between oil, gas and water by sending controlled pulses of electric current between electrodes in the soil. As a result, oil companies, whose drilling activities have a strike rate of about one in four, could save billions.
Walker admits that "a lot of work" still needs to be done on the commercialisation side, and says the oil majors take a "conservative" approach to new technologies.
"It can take a company between five and ten years to examine a new technology and then absorb that into its workflow. We are talking about a very conservative industry. When they are profitable, as they are now, it's a case of 'why should we change?'"
He talks of having reached a "tipping point", adding: "We're nearly there. At some point the technology becomes accepted and then it becomes easy."
Walker believes the market that the firm's technology can be applied to could be worth as much as $1 billion in three or four years and is confident PGS can become the "number two if not number one" player in it.
Walker appears untroubled by the recent sharp fall in the price of oil, triggered by fears of a global recession and a slump in demand for fuel. Those concerns have pushed a barrel of crude from July's high of almost $150 a barrel to about $80.
"If the price dropped back to $10 a barrel again, you'd see a lot of people leaving town. But that's simply not going to happen," he says. "I think the days of cheap oil-based energy have gone. A few years ago if someone had talked about oil at $100 a barrel, we'd have been screaming. Now we think that's cheap."
The sale of MTEM to PGS in June 2007 grabbed headlines, not least for the scale of the deal. The $275m agreement saw the company acquired from Energy Ventures, Scottish Equity Partners and HitecVision, which each held about 22 per cent of MTEM's shares. Edinburgh University had a stake of about 6.5 per cent.
Walker and fellow MTEM founders, Anton Ziolkowski and Bruce Hobbs, made the switch to PGS, which employs about 4,000 people worldwide. Reflecting on the decision to sell the business, Walker says it made sense to act quickly and plug the fledgling firm into a much bigger one.
"The Japanese have taught us that you have two years after you think of an idea to get it out there," observes Walker, who describes himself as "the most impatient person on the planet".
He continues: "That's not long, especially when you've got to develop hardware and get out there and sell it to customers." He adds: "When PGS bought the company, they bought the expertise so it was very crucial to keep the people. As part of the deal, I agreed to stay for up to three years.
"When I do move on, I've got a list of things that I want to do and my wife tells me I've never had a proper break for 30 years. I will have to go on a holiday where I don't take my phone with me."
BACKGROUNDA GRADUATE of Imperial College London, Leon Walker began his working life as a lecturer with Paisley College of Technology before moving into the oil industry.
When Britoil, whose Glasgow operation Walker worked for, was absorbed into industry giant BP, he moved to Schlumberger, which provides technology, project management and information services to the oil industry.
There, Walker worked as a researcher and engineer before moving into marketing and management in seismic research and development and operations.
In September 2003, he left to work with Anton Ziolkowski and Bruce Hobbs to raise cash to fund the building of MTEM Ltd, which they achieved in November 2004.
In June last year, MTEM was sold to Norwegian group PGS for $275 million (£150m). Headquartered in Oslo, PGS has offices in 22 countries with larger regional offices in London, Houston and Singapore.
Walker, 55, lives in Edinburgh and is married with a grown-up family.
