Based in London, Hilkka Komulainen joins from Aegon as the firm’s new global head of sustainability and impact, succeeding Anne Foster, while Cathy Jones, previously at CVC Capital Partners, is assuming the newly-created role of chief people officer.
Another European appointment is that of Predrag Dukic as senior director for capital formation and investor engagement for Quinbrook’s Europe team out of Germany, joining from placement agent DC Placement Advisors.
The US investment team in New York will also have a new senior director in Nick Baker, joining from BAES Infrastructure where he was a managing director until this past June.
Lastly, Liv Miller will become a director for the UK investment team in London, hired from a position as VP of M&A and senior investment manager at Statkraft, the Norwegian state-owned electric utility.
Norges Bank IM’s real assets CIO to exit
Mie Caroline Holstad – currently chief investment officer, real assets, at Norges Bank Investment Management – will be leaving the organisation at the end of the year.
Her departure marks the end of a 14-year run at the Oslo-based company, which manages the assets of Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global that amount to roughly NOK19.4 trillion ($1.7 trillion; €1.6 trillion) according to NBIM’s website.
Having first joined as a senior analyst in 2010, Holstad built NBIM’s real estate portfolio from zero to NOK306.1 billion. It was also during her tenure that NBIM began investing in renewable energy in 2021. Today, that portfolio comprises five investments in four countries worth NOK19.7 billion.
Holstad decided to leave her role following an organisational restructuring that will see NBIM’s real assets and equity investments units merged.
The new unit will be renamed Active Strategies and will be led by Daniel Balthasar and Pedro Furtado Reis, co-chief investment officers, equities, according to a statement. They will be responsible for all active investment in equities, credit and real assets.
Deals
Stonepeak rolls ahead with another transportation leasing business
Stonepeak has acquired Fleet Companies, a regional trailer dealership and leasing business based out of Tennessee.
The investment is coming from Stonepeak Infrastructure Fund IV, said a source close to the deal. Following that fund’s final close in 2022 with $14 billion, the asset manager has since launched Stonepeak Infrastructure Fund V with a target size of $15 billion, according to Infrastructure Investor data.
Stonepeak wants to build a “multi-faceted national trailer platform” and sees Fleet Companies as the “seed asset” in that strategy, which will include additional acquisitions and greenfield operations across the US, it said in a statement.
James Wyper, a senior managing director at Stonepeak, said the trailer leasing sector has a history of “delivering solid returns on assets throughout economic cycles.”
The deal marks Stonepeak’s second acquisition of a transportation-focused asset leasing business this month, albeit the previous one being aircraft-based Air Transport Services Group in a $3.1 billion deal.
Roll on, then.
CIP’s India pairing eyes $3bn renewables pipeline
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has closed a new round of joint equity investment alongside Indian solar and wind developer AMPIN Energy Transition, with plans for creating a $1.5 billion asset base.
For CIP, this $150 million investment is another vote of confidence in the India market, where it intends to develop a 2GW pipeline of solar, wind, hybrid and storage technologies.
“This was the first final investment decision for Growth Markets II fund, which is still a new fund,” CIP partner Peter Jannik Sjontoft told The Pipeline. “This is our third final investment position in India, and it’s a market where we see significant potential.”
Through the predecessor fund, Growth Markets Fund I (formerly New Markets Fund I), CIP now has two significant investments in India. The other is a 300MW wind project in Karnataka with Viviid Renewables Private Limited.
The next step for the AMPIN partnership is to find projects that fit the bill.