Powers to join GIP as firm looks to expand credit arm

Global Infrastructure Partners will bring in Mizuho Bank managing director Jennifer Powers to chair its credit business, which the firm is looking to expand.

Powers will join GIP as a partner in September, the firm announced. She will work closely with Jon Bram, a GIP partner focused on power investments, as well as Reiner Boehning and Steve Cheng, managing partners at GIP Capital Solutions (GIP CAPS), the firm’s debt fund.

Powers joined Tokyo-based Mizuho in April 2015, when she was appointed joint head of the bank’s investment-grade debt capital markets division. She previously worked as a managing director for the Royal Bank of Scotland, and prior to that spent 12 years at Credit Suisse’s energy investment banking and capital markets departments.

GIP CAPS, the firm’s first debt vehicle, closed last year on an undisclosed amount. The fund’s investments include $125 million in a 453MW portfolio of power plants owned by Heorot Power. Investors in the fund include the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, which committed $200 million to GIP CAPS in 2014.

GIP has also raised three unlisted infrastructure funds, with GIP III closing on $15.8 billion – the highest total ever for an infrastructure fund – in January. GIP holds more than $40 billion in assets under management.