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If institutional investors want to make a better return and have an impact, then they need to embrace asset creation as a strategy.
That's the formula espoused by Australian legend David Scaysbrook has nearly 30 years of experience in energy and renewable infrastructure. He and his partner, Rory Quinlan, co-founded Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners Group — arguably among the industry's most lauded and recognizable renewable energy fund and development platforms. David really is one of the Titan’s of industry helping lead the Clean Energy Revolution. When we say “we’re standing on the shoulders of giants”...David and Rory are in that giant category.
Headquartered in London with offices in Europe, Australia and North America, Quinbrook is an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) focused, "value add" investment manager specializing in low carbon and renewable energy supply, storage, grid stability and related assets and businesses. And they’ve amassed one of the brightest teams and stellar track records in the marketplace, of that nobody can object. Heck, they’re building THE largest solar+battery storage project in the world!
Smart, innovative institutions get it, he said. They want "value add" opportunities with untapped potential. "They don't want to buy the existing wind farm or solar project because that's now become the riskier asset," David said. "In fact, ESG impact through asset creation is the only way you can get better returns with the attribution of that impact for the utilization of your capital."
And, during the past two years, Quinbrook has won multiple awards for its ESG commitment and innovation.
It bested 90 finalists in 17 investment fund categories to win Investment Fund of the Year from ESG Investing. It also earned ESG Investing awards in infrastructure and energy transition and an IJ Global ESG award for Technology in Energy.
Fund managers David and Rory and Quinbrook's other senior leaders have collectively invested $8.2 billion (USD) of equity in energy infrastructure assets since the early 1990s, representing a total enterprise value of $28.7 billion or 19.5 GW of power supply capacity. Let that sink in…if Quinbrook were a Country, and their enterprise value were their GDP, it would rank them in the Top 100 globally!
David described Quinbrook as developers with a Funds Management license. "the key to our success has always been investing earlier through that asset creation cycle and from an ESG perspective, closing the loop on that. We create assets from scratch, create jobs, build new assets, create benefits for local communities, and reduce emissions because everything we do is additional. It wasn't there before.
"By capturing the whole lifecycle value chain — everything from the early stage development profit, the derisking profit that you get from creating, from turning something from an idea into an actual project to derisking it through construction, and then into the derisked operations phase," he said.
Today's wide-ranging conversation traces David's path from a lawyer to a green energy champion who, as a managing partner, now leads Quinbrook's strategy and chairs its Investment Committee. You'll learn how an Australian landfill gas company taught David to be an entrepreneur and what sparked him to start his own renewable energy company. And you'll hear his prediction about the next significant bottleneck that threatens to hold back the renewable energy transition.
Growing up in Sydney, Australia, David had the support of an overly protective mother who made him "feel invincible." As he recalled, "My upbringing made me feel we could take on the world."
Though he never considered himself particularly entrepreneurial, he gradually veered off the legal footpath to build businesses. After leaving the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, he worked at NRG Energy NRG's Asian Pacific subsidiary; Blake Dawson Waldron; Novera Energy; Gaian Capital; Capital Dynamics; and Private Energy Partners before founding Quinbrook in 2015.
He characterizes being an entrepreneur as staring unflinchingly into the abyss — knowing the only direction is forward. "When I say unflinchingly staring into the abyss, as the leader and the founder, you're the captain of the ship," he said.
He said that modeling your behavior and thinking and showing courage and perseverance to yourself and those working with you enables you to defeat the odds and endure challenges.
"Those who succeed in entrepreneurship can come through challenging moments and endure. And they probably go on to do more entrepreneurial activities and start more businesses as I have done because I think that the resilience you build gives you the confidence to do it again," he explained.
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ABOUT THE HOST OF SUNCAST:
Nico Johnson is the creator and host of SunCast, consistently rated a top solar podcast in the clean energy sector. The content of the show is geared towards listeners looking for insights on where the markets are headed, how to position themselves or their companies, and what today's market leaders do to stay ahead of the pack.
Nico is an Investor, Executive Coach, and 16-year veteran of the solar industry, having led development in the US and Latin America for global companies like Trina Solar and Conergy.
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