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Raheem Jefferson Brennerman (born 1978) (also known as Raheem Jefferson Soe-Tan Jr. Brennerman) is an Energy and real estate business magnate, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He currently serves as the chairman for RJB Capital, and its core businesses, The Blacksands Pacific Group, BSP Technologies and BLV Group Corporation. He is also the Chair & Co-Trustee for Brennerman Family Foundation Trust and the principal of Brennerman Family Holdings and The House of Brennerman Holdings. [1]
Born in 1978, Brennerman grew-up living in New York city and then in both London and Switzerland. Brennerman's father was an American businessman but he was primarily raised by his mother, an international businesswoman, a diamond broker and textile trader. His step-father, an American banker and businessman of Nigerian descent, also partly raised him and introduced him to the oil trading business on the African continent. [2] Brennerman was admitted at the age of sixteen to one of Europe's most prestigious colleges at the University of London, where he earned his bachelor's degree with honors in Economics at the top of his class and later achieved a master's degree from Columbia University. [3] He started his career in Investment Banking at J. P. Morgan Chase & Co with focus on mergers and acquisition in the U.S. and European markets. [2]
In 2004 Brennerman founded BLV Group Corporation (a real estate and lifestyle company) and in April 2010 founded an oil and gas company, Blacksands Pacific Group, one of only three black owned energy business in the United States. On leaving J. P. Morgan Chase & Co and prior to establishing his businesses, Brennerman worked for the family energy business, which was started by his paternal grandfather in Louisiana. [4]
In 2004, Brennerman founded BLV Group Corporation, a real estate investment, management and development company which was previously based in New York with assets in Europe, Africa and Asia. The company focuses primarily on luxury condominiums, ultra luxury lifestyle hotels and spas and digital real estate. Under the essenza style brand, it provides lifestyle services from bespoke interior design to dedicated concierge services and more. [5] [6]
In 2010, Brennerman founded Blacksands Pacific, an international oil and gas exploration and production company which was previously headquartered in Los Angeles and with assets in North America and Africa. [7] Originally an energy trading company marketing crude oil and petroleum products. The company expanded to focus on exploration and production. Blacksands Pacific now also transports, stores, purchases and markets crude oil, natural gas, natural gas liquids, and bitumen. Currently operating in nine countries, Blacksands Pacific has announced that it is investing significantly in E&P and midstream oil and gas projects in Nigeria and Cote D' Ivoire and has entered into joint ventures in mining and infrastructure projects, including distributing gas between African countries. [8] [9] In an interview with LEADERS magazine in October 2014, Brennerman revealed that Blacksands Pacific had experienced significant growth especially in exploration and production, but that it is divesting its smaller interest assets in order to focus on larger assets that the company was acquiring, such as assets in the Gulf of Mexico that are expanding to produce over 100,000 barrels by 2019. [10]
Brennerman has been a vocal advocate of the US oil and gas industries' investments in Africa, claiming that US expertise and technology is helping to build long-term capacity in Africa to the benefit of local businesses and communities. [11] [12] He has pressed the US Government to spend more on shale oil and gas infrastructure in order to create more jobs and ultimately raise tax revenues, lower manufacturing costs and generate less reliance on energy imports. [13] Brennerman has also called for the US Government to lift the export ban on crude oil to help stimulate investment, create jobs and stabilize global energy markets. [14] Other issues that Brennerman has written about in the media include the importance of the Gulf of Mexico as a continuing source of hydrocarbons [15] and the need for oil and gas producers in the GCC countries to increase their investment in shale oil and gas exploration and technology. [16]
In April 2017 Brennerman was arrested for civil contempt following a civil case brought by ICBC (London), a subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. In June 2017, Brennerman was also arrested for alleged bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy. [17] In December 2017, Brennerman was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and visa fraud, and was sentenced in November 2018 to 12 years in prison. [18] [19]
Brennerman has maintained that he is innocent, was wrongfully convicted, that key evidence was intentionally withheld, that evidence was intentionally misrepresented, that the judges involved acted improperly, and that constitutional rights were not afforded to him. [20] [21]
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