Cezary Podkul

Mark Florian, who heads the energy-focused private equity firm’s infrastructure team, told attendees at the New York State Infrastructure Summit today that new forms of financing should be utilised for such a project to have real value.

Former department of transportation chief of staff John Flaherty told conference delegates in New York that the market has not done a good job of ‘charting a political path to victory’ in US deals.

Principals from Carlyle, Macquarie, RREEF and Industry Funds Management gathered today cautioned that market will not develop across America’s ‘fifty little countries’ without strong leadership from the government in creating incentives for private investment in infrastructure.

Andrew Chapman and Rob Kupchak, who led Macquarie’s $7.9bn buyout of Washington State utility Puget Energy and Chris Voyce and Arnon Klein, who advised ACS on its $1.6bn I-595 toll road deal, have each received promotions this year.

Kevin Carney, a former executive director in JPMorgan’s Infrastructure Advisory team in New York, is among the growing number of infrastructure investment bankers leaving the bulge bracket to pursue advisory activity on a more retail level. He started his own firm, Infrastructure Capital Advisors, in February.

The firm is in the process of creating a new unlisted fund that will focus on Mexican infrastructure opportunities. It will be housed within Macquarie Capital and staffed out of the firm’s newly opened Mexico City office.

The firm recognized A$417m of write downs across all its managed funds and still has unrealised losses of A$1.15bn across its 14 listed funds, many of which focus on infrastructure and real estate. It also raised A$540m of new capital in Australia, despite indications in February that it had no near-term plans to seek new capital.

Paul Fishers says the industrial real estate developer is solely focused on Virginia and has no plans to make other port investments on the US’ East Coast. Their bid, estimated to bring at least $9bn in economic benefits to Virginia, touched off a 120 day period during which the port will entertain competing proposals.

Placement agent Probitas Partners estimates the ‘anemic’ first quarter total partly reflects the glut of first-time fund managers in the market, but limited partners are still favorably predisposed to the asset class and may increase commitments in the second half of the year.

African Energy Infrastructure Fund is now more than half-way toward its first close, which is expected in the middle of the year, and has already lined up its first deal in Ghana. In December 2008, it received a $30m equity commitment from the African Development Bank.