$15B+ for Decarbonizing Infrastructure — Dr. Dmitriy Antropov, Co-Head of Infrastructure at the Partners Group
Co-led by Dr. Dmitriy Antropov, the private infrastructure integrated investment team at Partners Group ($119B+ in AUM), where his team focuses on (1) clean energy generation, (2) energy and resource efficiency, (3) low carbon fuels, and (4) carbon management. He has been with Partners Group since 2008 and has 17 years of industry experience. He has originated, led, and executed over USD 1.5B in investments generating 20%+ IRR.
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What is your investment focus — e.g., sector, stage, geography, check size? What makes you unique versus the competition?
Partners Group is a leading global private markets firm. Since 1996, the firm has invested over USD 150 billion in private equity, private real estate, private debt, and private infrastructure on behalf of its clients globally. We seek to generate strong returns through capitalizing on thematic growth trends and transforming attractive businesses and assets into market leaders.
We run a global multi-sector investment strategy, which follows a thematic approach. Decarbonization is a key long-term gigatheme, which drives our origination efforts. Within the decarbonization gigatheme, we focus on four themes: (1) clean energy generation, (2) energy and resource efficiency, (3) low carbon fuels, and (4) carbon management.
In each of those themes, we seek to invest anywhere between USD 200M and USD 1B+ in individual companies or assets. To be able to deploy these amounts, we either focus on established businesses with the potential for high secular growth or on a buy-and-build approach.
As a firm, we have a unique culture. "We are responsible for dreams" of hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries, who entrusted us with their savings. With our investee companies, we differentiate ourselves by driving entrepreneurship at scale and having an industrial value creation mindset. This transpires through our communication (e.g., ban of the world "deal"), our office locations (regional hubs in Denver, Zug, and Singapore), and the way we govern our assets (with several operating directors on each board as opposed to overwhelming businesses with financial professionals).
What are examples of recent investments that you’re excited about?
Partners Group has been investing in decarbonization for almost 20 years. To date, we invested over USD 4.5B in clean energy across 21 companies and assets totaling almost 8 GW in generation capacity. We have a global renewable footprint spanning Australia, South-East Asia, Western Europe, North and South America.
In June 2021, we acquired Dimension Renewable Energy, a leading distributed energy platform in the US. Dimension is focused on originating, developing, financing, and operating community solar and battery storage facilities across the US and has developed a deep pipeline of over 180 projects totaling over 800 MWs of solar capacity, and over 800 MWhs of battery storage across eight states. Dimension's projects will serve residential, commercial, and industrial subscribers from the local community where the projects are located. Partners Group will work closely with co-founders Rafael Dobrzynski and Sam Youneszadeh to grow Dimension into a more than USD 1B platform and one of the largest community solar operators in the US.
Another recent example is a district heating platform in Northern Europe, Gren, that we acquired in March this year. Gren has 881 MW of heat capacity and 130 MW of power capacity across 387 kilometers of district heating networks in the Baltics. Gren's fuel is largely derived from renewable or recycled resources, mainly biomass.
Finally, we hope to announce a formation of a carbon management platform later this year.
If you had to start over, what are 1-2 tips you’d give yourself in order to be faster, more effective, and higher impact?
Be careful about when to bootstrap versus invest for growth. Both are needed. As investors, it is in our DNA to make money. However, being visionary, especially in such an area as climate investing, cannot be underestimated. So my advice to myself is to have a big vision and then keep operationalizing it — breaking it down into steps, securing and committing resources to achieve them, and calibrating in reasonable intervals.
Outside of your current investment focus, what do you see as 1-2 promising climate or sustainability sectors?
This is a really challenging question, as we have a comprehensive portfolio and a wide lens regarding new opportunities. So there are not many sectors outside of our investment focus, but there are some where we have not been able to secure an investment — yet.
I am personally quite excited about sustainable digital infrastructure. There are some obvious applications to it, for example, building data centers with a direct green power feed. Some others are less obvious, for example, rolling out smart meters at telecom tower sites. Some are frontier topics, such as flexibility solutions at the intersection of energy and digital, where infrastructure is built for flexible workloads, which can be ramped up or ramped down in the response to what is happening on the energy side.
What are some habits and routines that keep you focused, healthy, and sane — e.g., meditations, exercise, productivity hacks?
I am a big fan of cold exposure and start my day with a five-minute cold shower.
Meditation — every day, ideally twice a day — is an important one.
On the productivity side, turning off all notifications — emails, messages, and notifications, and having a separate folder for CC emails (which I don't read) — has been a booster.
In general, I find it extremely important to take care of your physical state. Being able to prioritize sleep, fitness, and my alone time helps me to be a better leader, better husband, and better parent.
What recommendations do you have for our audience — e.g., books, podcasts, quotes, tools?
Try this exercise: Write down 100 things you would like to do or experience before you die. Where do you want to travel? What do you want to learn? What do you want to experience? Whom do you want to meet? What do you want your family and relationships to look like?
I have done this myself and had several coachees completing it. 100 is important — as it is actually hard and not obvious.
Once you have the list, you can use it to plan your activities, dissect different wishes to see what is important to you, and just use it as an everyday inspiration.
In terms of books, I’m happy to share 2 highlights from this year — none of which are new.
The first one is The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch. While basic, I find the principle very empowering, and the book does a good job detailing application to different areas of personal and professional life.
The second one is Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone. It was recommended by one of my coaches and gave me a fresh perspective on communication, leading, and interpersonal interactions.
Do you have any requests, announcements, or final advice for our listeners?
As someone who spends all day thinking about investments, I end up with an investor mindset for the rest of my day. So my advice is to invest in yourself. Think about how much time on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis you really dedicate to yourself versus the time which goes elsewhere. What percentage of your income do you invest in yourself — by learning, receiving coaching or advice, or just receiving help? It could be hard to invest in the world if one is unable to invest in himself.
In terms of announcements, I had the pleasure this year to launch a diversity and inclusion coaching program for professionals looking for careers in infrastructure or infrastructure investing. I really enjoyed spending the last five months with a small group, and I hope to double the number of participants in 2022. Stay tuned for the announcement and please apply!
Learn more.
Apply to our join our Climate Mastermind, an invite-only executive coaching group for climate CEOs and investors. We focus on faster business growth, better decision making, investor savvy, and stronger networks. Founded by Dr. Chris Wedding — with $1B of investment experience, 40,000 professional students taught, 25 years of meditation practice, and certification as a Mastermind Professional — our cohorts function like your own personal Board of Directors.
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Note:
THE TORCH is an interview series from Entrepreneurs for Impact. We profile CEOs and investors mitigating climate change. Our goal is to highlight their work and inspire others. As we deal with multiple crisis, from Covid and racial injustice to climate change and economic recession, we need some of this positive light in what seem like dark times. Onward and upward.