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People - SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

Aberdeen Standard Investments grows infrastructure investment team

by Release

Aberdeen Standard Investments, a global asset manager, has expanded its economic infrastructure investment capability with three new appointments. Michael Kearney has been appointed as senior investment director, while Nicholas Flynn has been hired as investment manager, and Alister Bankhead, as an analyst. They join Nicolas Ritter and Alex Anderson (investment managers) plus Albert Winid and Lisa Tomaschek (senior analysts), who have been appointed over the past 18 months. The team is now 14-members-strong.

Kearney is based in London and reports to Dominic Helmsley, head of economic infrastructure equity. His focus will be on the sourcing, due diligence and monitoring of investment opportunities. Kearney spent more than 15 years providing M&A and capital raising advice to the energy and infrastructure sector, primarily at JPMorgan and HSBC. Subsequently, he was deputy head of the M&A group at Centrica plc and head of M&A for power, renewables, midstream energy and gas storage.

The team targets direct investment in mid-market, core infrastructure transactions in the United Kingdom and northwest Europe. The team is split into three key areas, focusing on sourcing and executing investment opportunities; asset management throughout the lifespan of those investments; and fundraising for the SL Capital Infrastructure Fund I and future infrastructure funds.

The economic infrastructure team works alongside the concession infrastructure team, led by Gershon Cohen. Both Cohen and Helmsley report to Peter McKellar, global head of private markets.

SL Capital Infrastructure Fund I had a final close in February 2017, with commitments of £516 million ($679 million) from a diverse cross section of financial institutions, local authority pension funds and family-office investors from the United Kingdom, Europe and North America. The fund has already committed 72 percent of this capital to investments across the energy and transport sectors, including gas pipelines in Finland, hydro-electric plants in Norway, new fleets of trains in the United Kingdom, and gas pipelines/processing in The Netherlands. The fund aims to offer long-term infrastructure returns, working in close alignment with investors.

Helmsley, head of economic infrastructure equity, Aberdeen Standard Investments, said, “These new team members bring with them specialist sector, investment banking and geographic expertise that will allow us to cover Europe more broadly.  The growth of the team supports our strategy to develop a strong presence in the European gas and midstream sector, and develop new transport opportunities. Over the past 18 months we’ve invested almost three quarters of our capital in a range of European infrastructure, and the team is working on a rich pipeline of opportunities across our core sectors of transport, utilities and energy.”

Aberdeen Standard Investments currently has €3.3 billion ($4.3 billion) assets under management invested in social and private infrastructure projects.

 

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