People

IFM reshuffles infrastructure management

Following the resignation of Dunia Wright, head of Europe and US, Kyle Mangini will serve as IFM’s global head of infrastructure. Christian Seymour and Alec Montgomery, heads of infrastructure for Europe and North America, respectively, will now report to him.

-

Industry Funds Management, one of the largest infrastructure asset managers in the world, is reshuffling its infrastructure management after the resignation of Dunia Wright, the head of its European and US operations.

Dunia Wright
Kyle Mangini, who formerly headed Industry Funds Management’s (IFM) Australian infrastructure operations, will serve as the firm’s global head of infrastructure. Christian Seymour and Alec Montgomery, heads of infrastructure for Europe and North America, respectively, will report to Mangini.

Previously, both reported to Wright.

A person familiar with Wright’s resignation said she decided to leave the firm after being passed up for a promotion for the chief executive officer position at IFM. Her last day at the firm will be Friday, 9 April.

The position opened in October of last year after Damian Maloney, IFM’s chief executive for 12 years, decided to retire. The decision triggered an executive search and IFM’s board looked at both internal and external candidates to fill the position. Wright, a director on the investee and management boards of the firm, was an internal candidate for the job.

In March, when the board tapped an outside candidate for the job – Brett Himbury, a managing director at Tyndall Investment Partners, an Australian investment fund manager – Wright tendered her resignation, according to the person familiar with her departure.

Himbury’s first day on the job will be Monday, 12 April, the person added.

Wright had served as head of US and Europe since 1 July 2007. Previously, she served a senior manager at IFM. She had been with the firm for more than a decade, according to public testimony in front of a public utility commission.

IFM’s funds under management total $19.3 billion, with $6.2 billion of that in infrastructure. Approximately half of the infrastructure funds are managed by IFM’s Australian infrastructure fund and the remainder in its Global Fund. A 2009 ranking by pension consultant Watson Wyatt placed the firm at number two worldwide in terms of infrastructure assets under management, behind Macquarie Group.

IFM’s Global Fund, which has been active on a number of investments recently, has eight assets in its portfolio, including Vattenfall’s German electricity grid. Wright, based in New York, was a member of the fund’s management team during her tenure at the firm.