Palisade grows infrastructure team after institutional mandates

Palisade Investment Partners has expanded its investment team from five to seven after significant recent capital raising, including substantial new discretionary mandate clients, Palisade has announced.

The capital raising means the firm will now be looking to progressively acquire a range of infrastructure assets with long duration, Palisade said.

“Following the [global financial crisis], institutional investors are refocusing on ‘core’ infrastructure assets — assets that exhibit genuine infrastructure characteristics and generate strong inflation-linked returns over time,” said Palisade chairman Ian Macoun.

“With an expanded investment team and additional capital to invest, Palisade is well positioned to take advantage of the large volume of infrastructure assets that we are seeing come to market for a variety of reasons, including distressed vendors or overleveraged companies.”

Palisade has added Julian Widdup from Access Capital Partners to look after portfolio construction and management of Palisade’s Diversified Infrastructure Fund for separately managed accounts. He will also be involved in the acquisition of infrastructure assets.

Jane Watson joins Palisade from Australian Agribusiness Group, where she was asset manager. She will focus on Palisade’s Regional Infrastructure Fund, including agricultural assets.