Inside the Rope with David Clark

In this episode of Inside The Rope, David Clark is joined again by Roger Lloyd, founder and managing director of Palisade Investment Partners, an independent Australian infrastructure manager. Roger shares insights into the Palisade Infrastructure Trust and discusses how the fund has performed over the past year. He also provides an update on some of the key infrastructure assets in the Palisade portfolio and the company's approach to managing these assets. Roger also discusses the importance of sustainability in infrastructure investing and shares his thoughts on the role that infrastructure can play in driving economic growth. Finally, he reflects on his long career in the infrastructure industry and shares some lessons he has learned along the way. Roger Lloyd is the founder and managing director of Palisade Investment Partners, an Australian infrastructure manager that invests in core infrastructure assets across Australia and New Zealand. With over 30 years of experience in the infrastructure industry, Lloyd has been a key contributor to the development of the Australian infrastructure market. He is also a board member of several of Palisade's portfolio companies and holds a Bachelor of Engineering and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Melbourne.

Tom joined Nanuk in 2009 as a director of the firm, the firm’s chief investment officer and one of the firm’s portfolio managers with approximately 20 years’ investment industry experience in equity funds management, investment banking and private equity. Before his career in finance, Tom won a gold medal in sailing at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and paved the way for Australian high-performance sailors for years to come. In recognition of these accomplishments, Tom was also awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. Nanuk Asset Management was established in 2009 to develop world-leading expertise in the investment opportunities and risks associated with environmental sustainability and resource use efficiency. Nanuk does this by investing in globally listed companies associated with the broad themes of clean energy, energy efficiency, industrial efficiency, waste management, pollution control, food & agriculture, advanced & sustainable materials, water and healthcare technology. Nanuk takes an active, fundamental, valuation and research-driven investment approach. They incorporate positive and negative screening, ESG factors and values-based norms into their decision-making process.

In this episode, David is joined by David Blood to discuss his views on sustainable investing in 2023. David Blood is considered by many to be one of the pioneers of sustainable investment management. Almost 20 years ago In 2004, David created Generation Investment Management alongside Al Gore the former Vice President of the United States, a fund that invests with the mission to seek transformational change to drive to a net zero, prosperous, equitable, healthy and safe society. Prior to to creating Generation Investment Management, David was the CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. David Blood is a Founding Partner and Senior Partner of Generation Investment Management. He also serves as Chairperson of Just Climate. Previously, David spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs including serving as CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. David received a BA from Hamilton College and an MBA from Harvard Business School. David is chairperson of Social Finance UK and co-chair of the World Resources Institute and on the board of Dialight and On the Edge Conservation.

David is joined by Mike Lukin, the Managing Partner of Roc Partners, a mid-market corporate finance specialist providing predominately sub-investment grade debt to private, sponsored and public companies. Roc's strategy focuses on senior debt, uni-tranche and mezzanine finance to support companies with their strategic growth, M&A and expansion initiatives. Mike is the Group Managing Partner of Roc Partners where he is responsible for leading client relationships and investment activities in several markets. Mike was one of the founding partners of Roc Partners following the management buy-out of Macquarie Group’s private markets business unit (“MIMPM”) by its senior executives in June 2014. He currently serves as a director of Roc Partners investee companies StoneAxe, Australia’s Oyster Coast, Hirepool, National Dental Care, Infrastructure Advisory Group and Pacific Metals Group. Mike holds a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Applied Mathematics, is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Associate of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.

Rob Rayner, Founder and CEO of RF CorVal, shares his insights from 30 years in property management. He discusses navigating risk-adjusted returns in real estate, comparing the outlook for office and industrial sectors. Rob reflects on lessons learned from historical financial events, particularly high-interest rates, and the evolution of RF CorVal's strategies. He also dives into post-pandemic office dynamics and the challenges of converting vacant spaces, emphasizing the importance of adaptable strategies and long-term investments in real estate.

In this episode, David is joined by Rob Tucker, the founder and Portfolio Manager of the Chester High Conviction Fund, a strategy that since its inception in October 2013 has produced a return of 13.7% p.a. David and Rob discuss the strategy in depth, as well as Rob’s outlook on current markets. The Chester High Conviction Fund takes a high-conviction approach, choosing investments, where they have confidence in the high quality, predictable cash generation of the company, or they, have strong confidence in the valuation margin of safety. The team believe that finding unloved, underappreciated or undiscovered investments has been the most consistent source of capital growth for the strategy over 8 years. Rob founded Chester Asset Management in 2017. Prior to Chester, Rob spent 7 years at SG Hiscock and was most recently the portfolio manager of the SGH Australia Plus product, a 25-40 stock Australian Equity portfolio with a mid-cap bias, that was run in the same manner as the Chester High Conviction Fund.

Juan Penelas joins David to discuss e360 Power, a Texas-based asset management firm founded in 2009 designed to generate superior absolute returns through fundamental discretionary trading strategies in the North American electricity, global natural gas and related energy futures & options markets. Since its inception in November 2009 to October 2022, the strategy has returned 36.2% per annum (AUD), Juan is a member of the Investment Committee and a Portfolio Manager with trading responsibility across power and related portfolios including power volatility. Prior to establishing e360 Power, Juan was a senior power and gas trader at Griffon Energy Capital, LLC ("GEC") where he co-headed the power desk. Prior to joining GEC, Juan was the head of PJM Power Cash Trading for American Electric Power Energy Service (“AEP”). Juan has worked internationally in the energy and metal industries in a range of finance related roles. Juan has a degree in engineering (BS/MS) from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew joins David to discuss the Longreach Energy Income Fund, a fund that targets a total return of 20% p.a. (net of fees) inclusive of an income return target of 8% p.a. by investing in US energy through real assets, such as producing land and mineral interests. As economies transition towards a future global energy mix increasingly powered by renewable energy, Longreach argue that natural gas offers the most sustainable bridge to greener technologies. Throughout the episode, Andrew covers the investment opportunity available in US natural gas assets, and in particular how this compares to global counterparts including Australia. Andrew has extensive principal investment experience in global upstream gas and oil, gained during a career that has seen him co-found and lead the London office for the gas and oil investment division of Macquarie Bank. He has particular expertise in transaction execution, financial modelling and structuring investments as well as identifying attractive projects and evaluating the commercial potential of assets.

Cameron joins David to discuss his career to date, including his studies in engineering at MIT, as well as the origins of Pacific Equity Partners (PEP), and the current operating environment for investors in private assets. Cameron explains why he believes private equity has been able to consistently outperform listed equities over the past 20 to 30 years, including the importance of incentive structures to drive business performance. With approximately A$8.7 billion in assets under management, PEP is the largest and most active Private Markets Fund Manager in Australia. Cameron joined Pacific Equity Partners in 2002. Prior to joining PEP, Cameron spent three years with Bain & Company in Australia and North America. Previously, Cameron worked for seven years in the mining and construction industry in Australia, Asia and North America. He received an MBA from MIT Sloan, and a MEng and BEng (First Class Honours) from the University of South Australia where he was a Graduate Society Scholar.

Suzanne joins David to discuss the benefits of using Private Equity in investor portfolios, including the asset class's performance when compared to their traditional listed equity counterparts. Suzanne is a managing director in Alternatives Capital Markets & Strategy (ACMS) within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, serving as global head of Private Equity Strategies. She also serves as global head of Launch With GS, Goldman Sachs’ $1 billion investment strategy grounded in the firm's data-driven thesis that diverse teams drive strong returns. She first joined Goldman Sachs as an analyst in 2001, and rejoined as an associate in 2005 in the AIMS Private Equity Investment team, focusing on secondaries through the AIMS Vintage Funds program. Suzanne was named managing director in 2012.