Lamor's Global Megaprojects | Mika Pirneskoski | Negotiator 74

Summary

Lamor CEO Mika Pirneskoski describes how a Porvoo maker of oil spill response equipment grew into an international environmental services company that supplied two thirds of the equipment used in the Deepwater Horizon operation in the Gulf of Mexico. The episode’s central tension is that environmental problems are not solved by good intentions alone but by profitable business, and that oil will remain in the energy mix for a long time yet even as carbon neutrality targets tighten. Pirneskoski explains the company’s shift from equipment supplier to service provider, its three business lines, and the Business Finland-funded waste plastic ecosystem whose aim is to make plastic a raw material rather than fuel. Miettinen and Pirneskoski also work through the realities of negotiating, where a small Finnish family company sits at the table with oil states’ ministries and the world’s largest oil companies. Along the way they discuss Brazilian business and its culture of trust, the asset price inflation created by stimulus, Finland’s venture capital market, and why Finland knows its own global successes so poorly.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Deepwater Horizon and Lamor’s central role
• 01:26 — Guest: Lamor CEO Mika Pirneskoski
• 01:56 — The growth engine competition and the global plastics problem
• 02:29 — Environmental problems are solved only through business
• 03:18 — Where the name Lamor comes from
• 04:40 — The Larsen family, the shipyard and eastern trade
• 05:07 — Oil spill response capacity for the Baltic Sea and the Baltics
• 05:55 — Over 90 per cent of revenue from abroad
• 06:37 — The Gulf of Mexico disaster and Lamor’s operation
• 07:39 — Vessel of Opportunity and training the fishermen
• 08:23 — A small organisation and a wide responder network
• 09:36 — From equipment supplier to service provider
• 09:51 — 3i, Clean Globe and the 2012 merger
• 11:52 — Pirneskoski’s background in finance and doctoral studies
• 13:29 — Three business lines and the growth strategy
• 15:03 — Finland’s plastic waste ends up incinerated
• 16:16 — Neste, biofuels and plastic as a raw material
• 18:23 — An invitation into the Business Finland ecosystem
• 18:54 — Internationalisation cost a hundred million
• 19:44 — Finland’s venture capital market and the Wolt effect
• 20:25 — Transaction platform versus the SaaS model
• 22:00 — A Supercell anecdote and a small misjudgement
• 23:03 — Clash of Clans and the limits of addiction
• 24:15 — Five and a half years in Brazil
• 26:41 — Brazil’s regional differences and stereotypes
• 27:25 — Brazilian negotiating culture and the capital of trust
• 29:10 — Inflation, stimulus and rising asset prices
• 31:29 — Liquidity flows into ETFs
• 32:07 — Does value investing return as rates rise
• 33:42 — Bolsonaro, conservatism and economic policy
• 34:36 — Negotiating between giant clients and subcontractors
• 36:00 — Tenders, technical selling and price competition
• 38:08 — Saudi Arabia’s mega-investments on the Red Sea
• 39:00 — Aramco, environmental oversight and outsourced responsibility
• 40:35 — Oil’s role in the energy mix out to 2040
• 41:43 — Kuwait’s billion-scale soil remediation
• 43:55 — From a network model towards platform business
• 44:34 — A joke about investment bankers, and closing words

Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Lamorin globaalit megaprojektit | Mika Pirneskoski | Neuvottelija 74. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.