EISER partner Elkhouly off to Bastion

Year-old Bastion Infrastructure Group said Wael Elkhouly has joined to head asset management, giving the startup its latest marquee-name hire.

Prior to landing Elkhouly, who led asset management for EISER Infrastructure Partners, Bastion nabbed Enrique Fuentes, a transportation infrastructure expert and a longtime executive with Cintra and Ferrovial.

Partner Jaime Hector will take over as interim head of asset management for EISER until a replacement for Elkhouly is named.

Elkhouly in 2009 joined EISER, then a global infrastructure fund for Fortis, from Citigroup, where he worked as a senior member of its infrastructure advisory group. Prior to Citi, he had spent a decade with Bechtel Group in investment banking.

But Fortis in 2009 was a financial services provider in crisis: the Belgium-headquartered concern, reeling from its exposure to subprime mortgage, was merged into BNP Paribas. EISER spun out from BNP Paribas in 2010.

EISER launched its first fund, which closed with €1 billion in 2005.

Former Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure (MSI) official Ron Lepin founded Toronto-headquartered Bastion.

In addition to luring Fuentes and now Elkhouly, David Kaposi, David Perl and Karynna Ma have thrown in their lot with Lepin. Investor relations head Kaposi joined Bastion from Mercer Consulting, Perl came from Macquarie Capital and Ma left Mackenzie Investments.

Lepin joined OTPP as vice president, infrastructure, in 2002. He jumped to Morgan Stanley in 2006.