UBS Asset Management’s (UBS-AM) Real Estate & Private Markets (REPM) business has announced that it has made two appointments to strengthen its global infrastructure effort. Patrick Cunningham has been appointed as head of infrastructure business development Americas, based in New York, and Viktor Kozel joins as a portfolio manager to REPM’s infrastructure debt team, based in London. The appointments support the growth of the more than $4.5 billion infrastructure platform to meet increasing investor demand.
Cunningham arrives at REPM with more than 20 years of investment markets experience, the majority of which has been focused on the infrastructure, energy and real asset sectors. He will report to Tom O’Shea and will be responsible for growing REPM’s client and product franchise and for ensuring its infrastructure investment capabilities, across both debt and equity strategies, are marketed across the Americas.
Cunningham was most recently a partner at McCarvill Capital Partners, where he spent the past two years leading its private markets advisory and placement team, specializing in real assets, infrastructure, power and energy investment strategies. Prior to this, he held relevant senior roles at leading investment houses, including Macquarie, Capital Dynamics and JP Morgan, and gained extensive business development experience initiating and growing institutional client relationships and developing new products.
Kozel joins REPM with more than 12 years of relevant experience and will report to Alessandro Merlo. He arrives at a pivotal time for the team as it nears the closing of its second infrastructure debt fund, the Archmore Infrastructure Debt Platform II, for which he will play a key role in the origination, analysis, due diligence and execution of new investment opportunities across Europe.
Kozel joins REPM from Deutsche Bank, where he spent the past seven years working on debt transactions involving assets in the transportation, infrastructure and energy sectors, based in London. Prior to this, he supported business development activities at GMR Infrastructure, where he was involved in the asset management and financing of power and airport projects, and he also previously held a similar role at AES Corporation, a Fortune 500 global power company.
Commenting on the appointments, Tommaso Albanese, head of infrastructure at UBS-AM REPM, said, “Both Patrick and Viktor’s arrivals are timely to support the accelerated growth of REPM’s infrastructure platform. Together they enhance our wealth of experience as we move into execution phase on the efficient deployment of our latest debt product while at the same time explore opportunities to attract more investors to new strategies across the wider infrastructure platform.”
Richard A. Johnson, head of business development at UBS-AM REPM, added, “The creation of an infrastructure-dedicated business development role is demonstrative of both our growth ambitions for this area of the business and our recognition of the increasingly important role that this asset class is playing in our clients’ diversified portfolios as they seek alternative means of generating stable income-driven returns. Patrick stood out as an ideal candidate to lead these efforts in the Americas region, and we look forward to leveraging his impressive network of contacts to strengthen our sales platform.”