Macquarie Asset Management has announced a shake-up of its regional leadership positions across the Green Investment Group.
The firm has hired William Demas as head of Americas, based in New York. Demas arrives from his role as a managing director at Stonepeak, where he had overseen its energy transition investment activities since November 2020. Prior to that, he spent three years as an associate partner in New York with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. His latest move caps a return to Macquarie, where he was a senior vice-president for six years in Macquarie Capital’s power, utilities and renewables division.
Previous head of Americas Chris Archer will become co-head of the GIG in Europe, Middle East and Africa alongside Sam Newman. Archer had led the Americas for the GIG since Macquarie’s acquisition of the then-Green Investment Bank from the UK government in August 2017. Newman, for his part, “played a leading role in the acquisition”, and has been leading realisations of GIG wind and solar asset worldwide, according to a Macquarie statement.
The previous European incumbent Ed Northam is relocating to Singapore to become GIG’s lead in the Asia-Pacific region. Northam led the GIG in Europe from 2017 and was part of the original Green Investment Bank when it launched in 2012. He replaces Neil Arora, who took up the APAC reins in April from Ivan Varughese, only to leave in May, after 10 years at Macquarie. It is not known where Arora departed to.
The reshuffle “positions us for a new phase of growth in volume and impact”, said Mark Dooley, global head of the GIG, in a statement. It comes a few months after the GIG formally became a part of Macquarie Asset Management in April, having previously operated within Macquarie Capital. It is also the latest reshuffle within MAM, with Ben Way set to relocate from Hong Kong to New York later in 2022, as the firm plans greater focus on the region in the coming years.
As such, it has played host to the GIG’s latest deal, with an investment in Galehead Development, a US-based renewable energy development platform, which has partnered for planning, managing and delivering renewable energy projects for global utilities, independent power producers and large US corporates. Galehead has developed and monetised 5GW of wind, solar and co-located storage, Macquarie said in a statement, and is in joint development arrangements for a further 4GW.