UK
Getting into infrastructure
13 May 2008
While all other bubbles have burst, investors are still hurling money at infrastructure. Rumour has it there are even jobs to be had in the sector. Predictably, however, you’ll need infrastructure experience to be in with a chance of landing one.
Recruiters in the sector say there are more than 50 infrastructure-related vacancies in London now.
“Infrastructure hiring isn’t as unsustainable as leveraged finance hiring was during the boom – when there were 200-400 vacancies in London at one stage,” says James Wakefield, head of the infrastructure finance team at Cobalt Recruitment. “But there’s definitely a lot going on.”
Wakefield says the big infrastructure recruiters currently are the infrastructure funds, rather than investment banks’ infrastructure advisory or financing teams.
Emboldened by the success of the Macquarie model, other banks want a piece of the pie. It emerged yesterday that Morgan Stanley raised $4.0bn for an infrastructure fund operating out of New York, London, Hong Kong and Beijing, while a joint venture between Credit Suisse and General Electric raised $5.6bn.
A director at one UK infrastructure fund says the sector is home to people with all manner of backgrounds: “People come from project finance, and sometimes from leveraged finance. Infrastructure deals tend to be quite structured, so you also get people with legal and tax experience.”
On the whole, however, previous infrastructure experience is strongly preferred. “At a junior level, a form of ‘hybrid’ financial modelling skillset is imperative,” says Catherine Armstrong at search firm Kinsey Allen. “Infrastructure candidates need to fall somewhere between the big-picture modelling that goes with leveraged finance and the minutiae of modelling a project finance transaction.”
“At a more senior level, prior knowledge of equity investing in infrastructure is usually mandatory,” she adds.
Pay varies hugely, but Wakefield says an infrastructure professional with five years’ experience can probably expect a base salary of £60k-£90k, plus a bonus of 100%, plus – if working in private equity – carried interest.
Yup, can confirm this - also for other locations, e.g. Frankfurt, where I work. Infra Finance is definitely one of the last fields where banks are still eager to hire. There are several vacancies in banks here in Frankfurt as well ...
Steve Ly 13 May 2008
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