Stonepeak targets Europe with new hire ahead of $7bn first close – exclusive

Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners has hired Daniel Zinic from placement agent Park Hill Group to work with European institutional investors on the firm’s fourth flagship fundraise as it approaches a $7 billion first close.

Zinic will join Stonepeak as managing director for European client relations early next month, ahead of an expected first close on Stonepeak Infrastructure Fund IV by the end of April, a source told Infrastructure Investor. The source said the firm is expecting to reach first close with more than two-thirds of the fund’s $10 billion target met, suggesting Zinic will play an important role covering the European LP market to secure the final few hundred million dollars of commitments.

Based in London, Zinic has helped private equity firms raise capital for more than a decade, including working at placement agent FIRSTavenue, where he assisted Stonepeak on its inaugural $1.65 billion fund in 2012, according to the source. He’s worked at Park Hill Group for the past year and a half and was named a “rainmaker” on Infrastructure Investor’s list of top 20 fundraising professionals.

The source noted that Zinic is especially well known in German institutional investor circles, and his hire at Stonepeak is a sign that the firm, based in New York, is bringing fundraising expertise in-house to increase the percentage of capital raised from European LPs.

At the start of raising Fund IV, Stonepeak also brought back its head of investor relations, Brenden Woods, who left in December 2018 to join Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.

Led by Australian investors Trent Vichie and Mike Dorrell, Stonepeak spun out of Blackstone in 2011 and has gone on to raise a series of multi-billion-dollar funds, investing capital primarily in North American infrastructure sectors including power, water, energy, communications and transportation.

Stonepeak has set terms for Fund IV that match what the firm marketed in previous fundraises, including a 1.5 percent management fee, a 20 percent carry and 8 percent hurdle. It has not yet set a hard-cap.

The firm raised $3.5 billion for its second vehicle and $7.2 billion for its third fund, which closed in July 2018, and has invested in assets including midstream company Targa Resources and cold storage transportation company Lineage Logistics.

Stonepeak declined to comment for this story.