Infralogic Investors Forum - Australia 2022
The premier Infrastructure forum in Australia
Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney and Online
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Charlie Reid, Managing Director, joined BlackRock in 2011 and is a founding member of BlackRock Climate Infrastructure. Charlie led the establishment of the team, firstly in London and subsequently in Asia Pacific. Charlie currently leads investment activities in the Asia Pacific region for BlackRock Climate Infrastructure and is responsible for sourcing, executing and managing climate investments across the APAC region from Sydney, as well as setting strategy for the business. Charlie has played a leading role in building BlackRock Climate Infrastructure into a c.$9bn global platform and has invested in over 100 climate infrastructure assets across a range of markets.
Charles is an M&A Partner at Allens in Sydney. He has extensive experience advising listed companies, infrastructure investors and private equity sponsors on large-scale public and private M&A.
Charles has particular expertise in public market transactions including schemes of arrangement, takeovers, and activist situations. He also regularly advises on the structuring and execution of pre-bid stakes and other structured derivative trades. He is a member of the Corporations Committee of the Law Council of Australia and previously worked at Linklaters in London.
Recently, he has advised IFM in relation to Atlas Arteria; Grok Ventures and Brookfield in relation to AGL Energy; Grok Ventures on its activist campaign against AGL's proposed demerger; BGH on its contested takeover bid for Virtus Healthcare; the KKR, Ontario Teachers' and PSP Investments consortium on their acquisition of Spark Infrastructure; a consortium bidding for AustralianSuper's stake in Ausgrid; Global Infrastructure Partners on the establishment of its joint venture with Total in relation to the Gladstone LNG Project’s downstream infrastructure, and its acquisition of Shell’s interest in the QCLNG common facilities; Zenith Energy on its acquisition by PEP, ICG and OPTrust; and QIC Infrastructure on its acquisition of Pacific Energy.
Paul Bernath is responsible for leading CPPIB’s Infrastructure presence in the Asia Pacific region (ex-India), and for identifying, executing and managing significant infrastructure investments. Mr. Bernath is also CPPIB’s Australia Office Head and is based in Sydney, Australia, having previously been based at CPPIB’s Toronto headquarters.
Prior to joining CPPIB in 2014, Mr. Bernath spent over 10 years focusing on public and private mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and restructuring projects and large infrastructure transactions, including time as a corporate attorney at Allens Linklaters and as an M&A transaction consultant, based in Australia and the USA.
Mr. Bernath holds a BSc (Hons) (Pharm.) from the University of Melbourne and an LLB (Hons) from the Melbourne Law School; and has also studied on exchange at the University of British Columbia.
Mr. Bernath is a non-executive director of Pacific National, WestConnex and NorthWestern Roads Group, and is a member of the Board of Commissioners for the Cikopo-Palimanan (Cipali) toll road in West Java, Indonesia.
Henri joined the Global Infrastructure Hub in July 2020 as Chief Content Officer and leads the strategy and delivery of content initiatives and research, tools and products for the Hub.
Prior to joining the GI Hub, Henri was the Resilience Finance lead and acting COO for the Global Resilient Cities Network - an initiative across 100 cities pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation. He had previously been leading Aecom infrastructure advisory practice in Asia, advising on asset valuations and sale/acquisitions for Macquarie in North America and consulting on transport projects across Europe and APAC for Systra.
Henri holds an MSc of Civil Engineering from ENTPE (France) and an MSc of Science from New York University (USA).
Speaker bio coming soon
Nick is a Senior Associate at AustralianSuper and is responsible for ESG integration and stewardship across the fund’s private and public markets investments.
Nick joined AustralianSuper from BHP where he led the company’s capital allocation process and managed the integration of climate change within its investment process.
Rob Clow is a senior reporter with Infralogic in Sydney, covering energy mergers and acquisitions, project finance and trading in the Asia Pacific region.
A financial journalist with over 20 years’ experience in London, New York and Sydney, Rob has previously worked on the staff of the Financial Times, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, the New York Post and Institutional Investor magazine.
James is a Director at Principle Advisory Services, a leading Australian investment management advisory and distribution firm. James covers the Australasian institutional investor market and specialises in private markets investments including unlisted infrastructure, private equity/venture capital, real estate and alternative credit strategies.
James is a Director of the CFA Society Sydney and in 2020 was appointed Treasurer of CFA Society Sydney and joined the Investment Committee responsible for the management of the Society’s financial reserves.
James is a Director of the Sydney Bethel Union, a charity delivering welfare services to seafarers at major NSW ports.
Alistair leads Ironstone Capital’s renewable energy business and is also Chief Executive Officer of Warada Capital (a joint venture between Ironstone Capital and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation). Alistair has over 18 years of corporate advisory, project finance and principal investment experience across the infrastructure, energy and resources sectors in Australia, Europe and the USA.
Alistair is a specialist in the renewable energy sector having worked in the sector for the past 12 years across financing, technical, development and strategic disciplines.
Prior to Ironstone, Alistair worked at UBS and Macquarie Bank and was involved in the establishment of UBS Infrastructure Asset Management, a division of UBS focussing on direct global infrastructure and equity investments. As part of this, Alistair was Chief Executive Officer of the 206MW Collgar Wind Farm in Western Australia and led the development, financing, construction, initial operations and ultimate sale of the project.
Alistair has a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (1st Class Hons) and Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Western Australia.
In his role as Senior Managing Director, Asia-Pacific at OMERS Infrastructure, Christopher leads the APAC team based in Sydney and Singapore, and is responsible for OMERS Infrastructure’s strategy across the APAC region, including all investment and asset management activities. Christopher joined OMERS in 2014 and since that time has played a key role in building the presence in Australia and the APAC region, including investments in the Port of Melbourne, Transgrid, Azure Power, FRV Australia and, most recently, TPG’s mobile tower portfolio.
Prior to joining OMERS Infrastructure, Christopher spent seven years with GIC’s infrastructure team in London, leading transaction-execution teams and holding board director roles for major investments in the regulated utilities, power generation, midstream energy and transportation sectors. Before GIC, Christopher spent eight years with PwC in Australia and the U.K., leading financial advisory mandates on numerous infrastructure projects across Australia, Asia and Europe. He also previously held roles with the Reserve Bank of Australia and National Australia Bank.
Christopher holds a Bachelor of Business (Banking & Finance) from Victoria University, a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Shaun has been a senior reporter, news editor and deputy editor at Infralogic covering Australia, NZ and Asia for more than seven years. Prior to that, he worked as a reporter and editor at Fairfax Media for eight years. His roles there included editor of CFO magazine, reporter on AFR Dealbook and financial services reporter for the Companies and Markets section of The Australian Financial Review.
Rowan is an Associate Director in the Infrastructure Investments team based in Sydney. Rowan is involved in all aspects of our investment process, including new acquisitions (most recently as part of the project teams for the acquisitions of Waste Management New Zealand and Tuatahi First Fibre) and asset management, currently working with the asset teams for coNEXA and Integrated Waste Services. Rowan also leads and coordinates the team’s Responsible Investment work in Sydney, as Head of ESG Australia & New Zealand.
Prior to joining the team, Rowan was a Senior Analyst at TCorp where he provided advisory services for a variety of State government sponsored structured finance and infrastructure projects, ranging from structured leasing to PPPs.
Rowan completed a Bachelor of Business at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), majoring in Finance, and has also attained a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia, as well as a Masters of Business in Finance (Corporate Finance stream) at UTS. He is a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Robin oversees global editorial and research coverage for Infralogic. A 24-year news veteran, with 16 of them spent editing financial news, Robin has worked for some of the world's leading news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and Bloomberg. He has been a regular on live television, commenting mainly on Chinese government and central bank policy. At Infralogic, he is responsible for daily news coverage and analysis written by a team of journalists spread across the globe, including the Americas, EMEA and the Asia-Pacific region.
Gary is an Investment Manager Infrastructure at HESTA. HESTA is an Australian industry superannuation fund for workers in health and community service sectors and has $80 billion in funds under management.
The infrastructure portfolio is approximately A$9 billion and includes funds, co-investments and direct investments across a range of sectors and regions.
The infrastructure portfolio is approximately A$7 billion and includes funds, co-investments and direct investments across a range of sectors and regions.
Gary was previously a Senior Manager Infrastructure at New South Wales Treasury Corporation (TCorp)
and prior to that in the corporate transactions & strategy departments of major listed companies (Origin Energy and APA Group) as well as consulting (PwC Transaction Services, Sydney & UK).
Gary is a Chartered Accountant, holds a Masters of Applied Finance from Macquarie University, a Masters in Computer Science and a Batchelor of Civil Engineering.
Gordon has overall responsibility for the Utilities Trust of Australia and Morrison Infrastructure Partnership. He is a member of the firm’s Asset Management Committee and Valuation Committee. Gordon is a senior infrastructure professional with 20 years of experience spanning investment management, corporate governance and corporate advisory across a wide range of infrastructure subsectors, including renewable and conventional power generation, electricity, gas and water utilities, transport and data infrastructure. Prior to joining Morrison, Gordon was a Principal in the Queensland Investment Corporation’s (QIC) Global Infrastructure business, where he led the Energy & Utilities investment team. Gordon is currently a Director of TransGrid and Uniti Group.
Speaker bio coming soon
Tom has been with Infrastructure Capital Group (ICG) for over 10 years and Managing Director since 2014. He is responsible for overseeing all activities of the group and has been pivotal in the group’s expansion in recent years, including launching new products and more than doubling in size.
Tom has many years of experience in the purchasing and selling of infrastructure assets in multiple jurisdictions, and has significant global infrastructure investment banking experience across roads, rail, airports, ports, regulated utilities, power generation, pipelines & PPPs. Tom has international experience having spent a decade in Canada and Europe. Tom is also an accomplished company director, sitting on numerous boards and with experience as Chair of various committees. Tom brings substantial experience across all aspects of the infrastructure industry, with advisory and fund experience. He has transactional, execution, origination, commercial, HR, risk management and strategic thinking skills.
Tom is a portfolio manager for DIT, is a member of the Investment Committee and has directorships on ICG, various trustee boards and various portfolio companies.
Tom holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and Bachelor of Commerce.
Sandra has over 20 years experience in the investment management and financial services industry. Her experience includes infrastructure portfolio and transactional management across the transportation, utilities, timberlands, PPPs and telecommunications sectors in Australia and globally. Sandra joined UniSuper in 2008 from Perpetual Investments and prior to that, held various senior finance roles within the NAB group. At UniSuper, she has responsibilities over the Fund’s infrastructure activities comprising origination and active asset management of its unlisted Infrastructure portfolio and sector coverage of domestic and global listed infrastructure, with investments currently totalling over $15 billion.
Sandra also currently serves as a director on Plenary Health (Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre) and Aquasure (Victorian Desalination plant).
Sandra holds a Bachelor of Economics from Monash University, is a Certified Practising Accountant, a Fellow with the Financial Services Institute of Australasia and a Graduate Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Josie is Senior Advisor, Infrastructure for the New Zealand Superannuation Fund (NZ Super). NZ Super is a sovereign wealth fund with NZ$60 billion in assets under management. Josie is responsible for the infrastructure strategy of the fund, and advising on new and existing investment activity in infrastructure across manager relationships, co-investment opportunities and direct investment.
Prior to joining the Guardians, Josie was Strategy Manager with Actis, a growth markets investor, and previously worked with IHS Investments in South Africa, and the World Bank, based in Indonesia.
Josie is currently completing a Global Executive MBA from INSEAD. She has degrees from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Harvard University and the University of Auckland.
Michael is the head of Macquarie Capital’s Technology, Media, Entertainment and Telecommunications (TMET) industry group and has overall responsibility for Macquarie Capital’s advisory and capital raising activities in those industries. Michael has ~17 years of corporate advisory experience having advised clients in mergers, acquisitions and capital raisings across a broad range of situations, markets and stakeholders.
Most recently Michael’s team has advised their clients on a number of significant digital infrastructure transactions including advising Axicom’s shareholders on its sale to Australian Tower Network, advising Telstra on the sale of 49% of Amplitel, advising MAM and PSP on the acquisition of Airtrunk, advising CSC on sale of a 24% interest in Canberra Data Centres, advising TPG on its merger with Vodafone, Joint Lead Manager on the IPO of Pexa and advising APG on its investments in OneAsia and Chindata.
Julie-Anne has more than 30 years’ financial markets and investment management experience across real assets and listed equities in Australia and overseas.
Julie-Anne joined as the inaugural CEO of Plenary Funds Management in 2021 responsible for creating and building the boutique infrastructure investment management business from a standing start through capitalising on the strengths of the Plenary Group. She now holds the role of Non Executive Director & Senior Advisor.
Julie-Anne worked at AMP for more than 25 years in Sydney and London in equities management, corporate strategy and M&A and for 14 years in infrastructure, most recently as AMP Capital’s Global Head of Social Care. While there, she founded and led the transformation of the Community Infrastructure Fund into the leading brownfield social infrastructure fund in Australia and New Zealand of its day, comprising 18 assets with an enterprise value of more than $8 billion.
Julie-Anne previously worked in investment management at companies including Ord Minnett / J.P. Morgan, ANZ McCaughan and NZI Investments.
She is the founder of the Australian Chapter of Women in Infrastructure (WIN) and remains a WIN Advisory Committee member at Infrastructure Partnerships Australia.
In 2015 Julie-Anne was named one of the 100 Women of Influence by the Australian Financial Review and Westpac for her contribution to promoting women in infrastructure.
Julie-Anne holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Masters of Commerce degree as well as being a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She also recently completed an INSEAD course on Strategic Decision Making for Leaders.
When she is not managing infrastructure investments, Julie-Anne enjoys cooking, playing board games with her family and beating her best time in expert sudoku. She has passed AMEB 7th Grade in Piano and has a wide interest in music. She is also passionate about art and architecture and is a Governor of the Art Gallery of NSW Foundation.
Ray Neill is a Managing Director in Brookfield’s Infrastructure Group, responsible for leading business development and transaction execution in Australia.
Mr. Neill joined Brookfield in 2010, following Brookfield’s acquisition of the Australian-listed company, Prime Infrastructure, where he worked as an investment analyst. Mr. Neill serves as a board member on several of Brookfield’s operating companies including Arc Infrastructure, DBT and Patrick Corporation. Previously, Mr. Neill worked in the transport group of the strategy consulting firm Booz and Co.
Mr. Neill holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Queensland and a Graduate Diploma in from the Securities Institute of Australia.
Rene is Director at Igneo Infrastructure Partners based in Sydney, Australia and is responsible for the origination, execution and management of infrastructure investments in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Rene has over 12 years of infrastructure investment experience in Australia and Europe and has successfully completed transactions in the transportation, utilities, energy and renewable energy sectors.
Rene currently serves as a Director of Atmos Renewables, Igneo’s utility scale renewable energy platform in Australia. He was previously an alternate director of a Swedish gas transmission portfolio company. Rene holds a Bachelor of Mathematics and Finance (Honours) from the University of Wollongong and is a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Stephen Panizza is a founding member of Federation. Previously, Stephen was the Chief Investment Risk officer at the Clean Energy Finance Corporation of Australia. Prior to CEFC, Stephen was a senior member of Macquarie Capital’s Principal Investment division, and led that division in Asia. He has over 30 years' experience in the financial services industry, including 15 years living and working in Asia.
Whilst Stephen’s recent history has been dedicated to clean energy and renewables financing, his detailed prior experience across infrastructure, resources, industrials, services and other sectors often proves useful to investee companies as they look to contract with governments and other businesses.
Stephen holds a Bachelor of Economics degree and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Australia.
Vicki has over 20 years’ experience in the infrastructure sector. She joined Palisade as one of the founders in 2008 and holds a senior leadership role in the business. Vicki focuses on the acquisition and management of infrastructure assets and has oversight of Palisade’s funds and mandates. She has a particular interest in risk and governance and is a director on the boards of Palisade Investment Partners, Palisade Impact and Palisade Real Assets and a number of Palisade’s investee companies.
Prior to joining Palisade, Vicki spent time with Perpetual Investments and prior to that, 10 years with Mallesons Stephen Jaques (now King & Wood Mallesons) and Linklaters in Sydney, London and Hong Kong.
Vicki’s experience spans a broad range of sectors including PPPs, roads, airports, pipelines, renewable energy, power and gas. Her roles have included acquiring and managing assets, sitting on infrastructure boards and acting for sponsors and financiers in relation to the development, acquisition and financing of projects in Australia, Asia, India and the UK.
Vicki is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is admitted as a Solicitor in both NSW and England & Wales. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Law) and Master of Arts (Law) from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge University.
Grant has 26 years’ experience at Macquarie with the majority of this time working in infrastructure, private equity and special situations investment. He is the Head of Infrastructure - Australia in the Macquarie Asset Management Real Assets division. MAM Real Assets Australia has in excess of A$15 billion of infrastructure funds under management, managed through global, regional and country funds, and separate managed accounts.
Grant has also taken responsibility for a range of internal/corporate matters for MAM globally, including the internalisations of several of MAM’s listed funds including Macquarie ATLAS Funds (now “ALX”), DUET Group (Australia) and the Macquarie Power & Income Fund (Canada).
Prior to working in MAM, Grant was Executive Director in the Principal Investment Area (PIA) at Macquarie Capital (Macquarie’s investment bank) between 2002 and 2007.
The PIA is responsible for managing Macquarie Capital’s global principal investment portfolio. During Grant’s tenure, PIA managed the acquisition and disposal of over A$7 billion in direct equity investments and he had responsibility for a range of Macquarie Capital principal investments globally, including in toll roads, airports, telecoms, water, rail, power and regulated assets.
Significant acquisitions in which Grant played a senior role of behalf of Macquarie and/or its managed funds and affiliates include the acquisitions of Thames Water (UK), Brussels Airport, Copenhagen Airport, Arlanda Express (Sweden), Taiwan Broadband Communications (Asia), Broadcast Australia, ConnectEast tollroad (Australia), Wales & The West Utilities (UK) among others.
While in PIA, Grant was also Head of Strategy for Macquarie Capital and provided assistance to then head of Macquarie Capital, Nicholas Moore (the immediate past Chief Executive and Managing Director of Macquarie Group).
Between 1996 and 2001, Grant spent 5 years as an M&A adviser in Macquarie Corporate Finance in Sydney across both private and public M&A transactions. Grant was a key team member:
- advising publicly listed companies in the insurance, construction, chemical, consumer products and automotive sectors on defences to hostile takeover offers
- advising corporates on acquisitions, divestments, equity raisings and strategic options
- advising on the $1 billion Macquarie Bank listing on ASX (1996)
- working on Macquarie’s lead manager role for the A$9 billion IPO of Telstra Corporation (1997) (the first tranche T1).
Grant is fluent in French and at a conversational level in Spanish.
Nancy Tchou has over 16 years investment banking experience and is currently leading Morgan Stanley’s Superannuation and Infrastructure Fund Coverage. She has advised a number of corporate clients, government clients and superannuation funds; >$20bn of domestic and cross-border M&A and capital market transactions . Her team has been heavily involved in most of the large, high profile infrastructure/alternative infrastructure M&A transactions, including the IPO of PEXA, sale of Virgin Australia Holdings out of administration, the Port of Melbourne
commercialisation transaction and NSW Ports leasing transaction. She is currently leading the landmark VicRoads Registry modernisation transaction.
James is a Senior Investment Manager at Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, which provides superannuation services to over 700,000 employees of the Australian Government and members of the Australian Defence Force. James has over 15 years’ experience in investing in and advising on infrastructure assets, and at CSC he looks after CSC’s direct and indirect investments in infrastructure assets.
Vaughan Wallace is responsible for leading Amber Infrastructure’s presence in the Asia Pacific region, and for identifying, executing and managing super core, core and core plus investment opportunities. Focused on the development and long term management of investments across the infrastructure spectrum including social infrastructure, transport and digital sectors Vaughan draws on more than 23 years’ experience in the development of major infrastructure projects across the globe.
Vaughan is a member of a number of Amber’s Investment Committees and sits as a Director on several investment vehicle boards. Vaughan is a non-executive director of Reliance Rail, Gold Coast Light Rail and the Amber owned data centre platform iseek.
Prior to joining Amber Infrastructure in 2020, Vaughan was head of origination for Capella Capital, and has previously worked for Babcock & Brown, ABN AMRO and P&O Ports.
Vaughan is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and holds a Batchelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment from the Securities Institute of Australia.
Rob leads MUFG’s Project Finance and ESG Finance businesses in Oceania.
In Project Finance, he continues to expand MUFG’s market leading business in the region, spanning infrastructure, renewables, utilities and natural resources.
In the newly created ESG Finance role, Rob is responsible for all ESG financing in Oceania, contributing to MUFG’s stated target of arranging JPY 35 Trillion (~AUD 417billion) in this field by 2030.
Rob has 24 years investment banking experience covering structured finance, advisory and debt capital markets. He previously led MUFG’s Advisory business in Oceania. Prior to joining MUFG in 2012, he worked at RBS, ABN AMRO and Bankers Trust. He has worked in Australia and in London, where he specialised in emerging markets including Russia and Kazakhstan.
He is a member of the Advisory Board of Infrastructure Partnerships Australia and also the Australian Council of the International Project Finance Association.