Fundraising

Marguerite bolsters committee and investment team

The EU-focused infrastructure investment firm, which is currently raising its debut fund, has appointed three independent members to its management board and investment committee. This follows swiftly from three new hires at Marguerite Advisor, the fund’s advisory company.

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The €1.5 billion Marguerite infrastructure fund has appointed Dr Reinhard Kalenda, Andrea Mangoni and Dipesh Shah as independent members of its management board and investment committee. They join Marguerite chief executive Nicolás Merigó and chief financial officer David Harrison on the investment committee.

Kalenda founded Hochtief Airport, the airport management subsidiary of Hochtief Concessions, in 1997 and was chief executive for 12 years. He was previously managing director of infrastructure for Hochtief Projektentwicklung, focused on transport infrastructure.

Mangoni is currently chief financial officer of Telecom Italia, Italy’s largest telecom operator. From 2003 to 2009, he led a successful turnaround and IPO as chief executive of Acea, the Italian utility. He has also worked for the InterAmerican Development Bank, part of the World Bank Group, in Buenos Aires and Washington DC.

Shah is the former chief executive of the UK Atomic Energy Authority and senior executive of BP. His 26 years at BP included spells as chief executive of Forties Pipeline System in the North Sea and general manager of the Grangemouth complex, BP’s largest processing, refining and petrochemicals complex in Europe.

Meanwhile, Marguerite Advisor, the advisor to the Marguerite Fund, has recently made three new appointments: Adrian Pawelec becomes internal legal counsel, having joined from law firm White & Case; Guillaume Rivron is an investment director, having previously been a director at Globeleq, part of emerging markets private equity firm Actis; and Martin Sichelkow has joined as an associate, having previously held the same position at Paris-based fund manager Cube Infrastructure.

Marguerite Advisor now has 13 team members in total.

The Marguerite fund announced its first close in March this year with over €700 million in commitments. The fund launched late last year with €600 million in seed capital from six core sponsors – the EIB, France’s Caisse des Dépôts, Italy’s Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Germany’s KfW, Spain’s Instituto de Crédito Oficial and Poland’s PKO Bank Polski – all state-backed banks, each having contributed €100 million to the fund.

Malta’s Bank of Valletta, Portugal’s Caixa Geral de Depósitos and the European Commission then joined the six original sponsors of the fund, with the EC contributing €80 million.

About 65 percent of its investments will be in greenfield projects with 30 percent to 40 percent of the fund to be invested in transportation, 25 percent to 35 percent in energy and 35 to 45 percent in renewables.