Author: admin

LONDON – 14 November 2025 – Blackstone (NYSE:BX) today announced that Franck Petitgas will join the firm in January 2026 as a Senior Managing Director and Vice Chairman, Europe.
 
In this newly created role, Lord Petitgas will work with Blackstone’s leadership on strategic initiatives and senior-level engagement with clients and business leaders across Europe.
 
Stephen A. Schwarzman, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO said: “We are excited to welcome Franck to Blackstone. His experience at the highest levels of international finance and strong relationships across Europe will deepen our engagement in the region as we accelerate efforts to finance, build, and scale great businesses and critical infrastructure.”
 
Franck Petitgas said: “I believe Blackstone is the most consequential firm in investing today, deploying capital to address some of the region’s most critical investment needs. I’m thrilled to join this outstanding team to help strengthen its commitment to Europe – supporting growth, innovation, and long-term value creation across the region.”
 
Lord Petitgas spent 30 years at Morgan Stanley where he was a member of the firm’s Operating Committee and co-head of Global Investment Banking before serving as Head of Morgan Stanley International. He retired from Morgan Stanley in early 2023 and was subsequently appointed by the then UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as his Chief Business Adviser. In March 2024, he was appointed to the House of Lords of the United Kingdom.
 
Blackstone has been active in Europe for over 25 years and currently has investments in over $350 billion of assets in the region across private equity, real estate, credit and infrastructure. The firm sees the opportunity to invest in over $500 billion of European assets over the next decade, driven by digitalization, AI, electrification and reindustrialization.

About Blackstone
Blackstone is the world’s largest alternative asset manager. Blackstone seeks to deliver compelling returns for institutional and individual investors by strengthening the companies in which the firm invests. Blackstone’s over $1.2 trillion in assets under management include global investment strategies focused on real estate, private equity, credit, infrastructure, life sciences, growth equity, secondaries and hedge funds. Further information is available at www.blackstone.com. Follow @blackstone on LinkedIn, X (Twitter), and Instagram.  

Media Contact
 
Dafina Grapci-Penney
[email protected]
+44 (0)755 367 3528

This is the first preferred supplier agreement for Osonic, Ørsted’s low-noise jetting-based monopile installation method, which also marks the first step towards commercial deployment of the technology. The installation method delivers a significant reduction in underwater noise, achieving levels just above the background noise in the German Bight, while also enabling cost savings. It is intended to be used for offshore wind turbine foundations across Luxcara’s offshore wind portfolio in Germany.

Osonic is a low-noise alternative to conventional pile-driving. The technology has been developed and matured by Ørsted over the past several years and was recently successfully deployed at Ørsted’s Gode Wind 3 Offshore Wind Farm in Germany, which entered into operation earlier this year.

With the creation of Osonic as a dedicated platform, Ørsted is moving the technology into a commercial phase, offering licensing of the technology and related services to third-party developers for European offshore wind projects. The creation of the Osonic platform aligns with Ørsted’s focused approach to capital allocation, as the technology will strengthen the value creation potential of future offshore wind projects and improve the competitiveness of offshore wind as an energy source.

Patrick Harnett, Executive Vice President and Chief Construction Officer at Ørsted, said:

“By reaching an agreement with Luxcara, we’re taking Osonic from concept to commercial offering, which demonstrates Ørsted’s strong track record of innovation as well as Osonic’s potential. We’re seeing increased interest from offshore wind developers across European key markets, and with this landmark agreement, we’re laying the groundwork for broader adoption.”

He added:

“As a leading developer of offshore wind, we’re proud to extend our technology services to third parties. This supports the further build-out of offshore wind, beyond our own 8.1 GW offshore wind construction portfolio, and further enables the deployment of offshore wind as an affordable, reliable, and secure resource.”

Holger Matthiesen, Director of Offshore Wind & Green Hydrogen at Luxcara, said:

“At Luxcara, we pursue a responsible and sustainable offshore strategy, which has enabled us to succeed in tenders that prioritise qualitative criteria. Already in 2022, Luxcara started looking into different low-noise offshore installation methods. We are pleased to now deepen the collaboration with Ørsted and look forward to preparing the next steps for the implementation of their low-noise installation technology, which has already been successfully deployed in the German North Sea. Its proven performance under conditions comparable to our projects was a decisive factor for us to consider the innovative technology.”

Ørsted is to license the technology and, under the preferred supplier agreement, will also act as an engineering, procurement, and construction consultant to Luxcara for the deployment of the technology.

About Osonic:

• Osonic is a patent-pending jetting technology that reduces the soil’s resistance to penetration, enabling foundations to sink more quietly into the seabed with minimal impact on marine life. This allows for replacing conventional pile-driving.
• The implementation of the Osonic installation method at Ørsted’s Gode Wind 3 Offshore Wind Farm resulted in a 99 % decrease in underwater noise levels relative to the most commonly used installation method. Noise levels were reduced significantly to a level just marginally above the ambient noise found in the German Bight in the North Sea. 
• In October 2025, Ørsted’s Osonic technology was awarded the prestigious German Sustainability Award in the product category. In its reasoning, the jury highlighted that this innovation “shows how the expansion of renewable energy and the protection of biodiversity can go hand in hand, setting new benchmarks as a potential standard for sustainable offshore wind projects worldwide.”

Read more at osonic.tech

Photos and video of Osonic are available on the following link for members of the media: Osonic media package

At the cutting edge of offshore wind innovation
The Osonic technology is a testimony to Ørsted’s approach to innovation, which has been core to Ørsted’s business from the very beginning, helping to take offshore wind power from a demonstration concept to a large-scale energy technology.

Advances in technology have already brought down the costs of renewable energy, making it cost-competitive with fossil fuels, and Ørsted will continue to harness cutting-edge technology to make green energy more affordable, reliable, efficient, and sustainable across the value chain. Recently, Ørsted has deployed an autonomous vessel for offshore surveying, and the company is using large drones to transport cargo to offshore wind turbines.   

Ørsted has in-house R&D capabilities led by a team with deep science and engineering expertise, overseeing many different projects, and the company has partnered with over 50 universities and research institutes, helping to bring the best ideas from the lab to the field.

For further information, please contact:

Ørsted Global Media Relations
Michael Korsgaard
+45 99 55 94 25
mikon@orsted.com

Luxcara Marketing & Communications
Lisa Zillessen
press@luxcara.com

About Ørsted
Ørsted is a global leader in developing, constructing, and operating offshore wind farms, with a core focus on Europe. Backed by more than 30 years of experience in offshore wind, Ørsted has 10.2 GW of installed offshore capacity and 8.1 GW under construction. Ørsted’s total installed renewable energy capacity spanning Europe, Asia Pacific and North America exceeds 18 GW across a portfolio that also includes onshore wind, solar power, energy storage, bioenergy plants, and energy trading. Widely recognised as a global sustainability leader, Ørsted is guided by its vision of a world that runs entirely on green energy. Headquartered in Denmark, Ørsted employs approximately 8,000 people. Ørsted’s shares are listed on Nasdaq Copenhagen (Orsted). In 2024, the group’s operating profit excluding new partnerships and cancellation fees was DKK 24.8 billion (EUR 3.3 billion). Visit orsted.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

About Luxcara
Luxcara is an independent asset manager offering equity and debt investment opportunities to international investors in the global energy transition market. The Hamburg-based company acquires, structures, finances and operates new generation infrastructure projects with a long-term, buy-build-operate approach for the clean energy transition. Luxcara’s longstanding focus on unsubsidized markets has made the company one of Europe’s most prominent investors in projects with long-term power purchase agreements. The company’s portfolio includes clean energy infrastructure across Europe. Their track record, dating back to 2009, makes Luxcara one of the continent’s most experienced asset managers for clean energy investments.

Follow us at www.luxcara.com or on www.linkedin.com/company/luxcara/.

 

Attachments