Institutional infrastructure investment, similar to most other investment types, is in the midst of a cyclical and potentially secular shift. Many managers see great opportunity and want to move quickly to take advantage, but some investors, especially those new to the market, are wary of an immature asset class that has seen its share of busted funds and firms, and want to move more slowly. Somewhere in-between a middle ground can probably be established.

The Rubik’s Cube — that craze of the 1980s — is a confounding puzzle not unlike institutional infrastructure investment; that is how Campbell Lutyens’ John Campbell described the market from the chairman’s podium at the Terrapinn Infrastructure Investment World Americas conference in New York City, April 26–30, and he’s right.

Institutional infrastructure investment has many moving parts, and just when people felt they were starting to get their heads wrapped around it, a financial crisis hit, the econo