AIAI member firm Invesis drives US market push with first US appointment

Leading global investor and developer Invesis, has today appointed Carlos Lopez Vilardell as Vice President of Business Development in the United States as part of its strategy to become a leading player in the US infrastructure investment market.

The appointment of Lopez cements the United States as the firm’s number one new market priority.

Based in Washington DC, Lopez was attracted by the company’s impressive portfolio of assets and achievements. “What Invesis can bring to the US market in terms of its wide variety of experience is really something that not many companies can claim,” he enthused.

“Just to give you an example,” he continued, “there is currently only one schools P3 in the U.S. Invesis meanwhile won their first P3 school project more than 20 years ago, and are currently successfully managing 13 P3 projects in the education sector across Europe covering over 50 schools and other facilities.

The timing of the Invesis move into this market is certainly opportune and for Lopez, “exciting” he says. He cites a combination of factors for the promising US infrastructure context, including last year’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a growing awareness of the benefits of P3s in US infrastructure, and an effort by the US infrastructure investment community to promote the P3 model after witnessing its success in Europe and Canada.

For Invesis the focus will be on leveraging the experience gained from its European investment portfolio to add value to consortia bidding for future P3 opportunities including transportation, social infrastructure (especially grouped schools and government office projects) and water infrastructure.

While there is no upper limit on the size of equity investment, Invesis generally expects to partner with US-based contractors and co-investors. At the same time, “we’re also flexible enough to consider small ticket sizes initially to find the appropriate route into the market” explained Lopez.

Lopez went on, “we’re both an Investor and Developer. Not only can we provide the funding at competitive rates, but we can also offer so much more to our partners because of our capability in project management, bidding, commercial structuring, financing and the expertise of our team which has decades of P3 experience behind them. As well as support from my European-based colleagues on a secondment basis I will be adding to the US team with further hires over the coming months to make sure we can add value to the partners we work with.”

Invesis are already actively pursuing significant secondary market opportunities as a means of accelerating entry into the US market.  In parallel the company is also working to build competitive consortia for its forthcoming greenfield P3 target opportunities “although the door is always open to other partners and contractors who would like to discuss teaming” says Lopez. Since the launch of its new brand and entry to the US market, Invesis has made a priority of promoting its experience, expertise and the value it can bring to government clients, co-investors and contractors.  Lopez will join this campaign  with a busy schedule of meetings and events across the US including the US P3 Forum (New York in September); P3 Higher Education Summit (Washington DC in October); P3 Awards (New York in October) and the P3 Government Conference (Arlington in December).  Lopez added “In my first few months I will be out and about introducing myself and the Invesis team to potential partners.  I’m looking forward to being able to explain how the values, deep experience and resources of Invesis can make a positive contribution to the P3 market in the US.”

With an announcement on the establishment of Invesis’ US company to follow shortly implementation of the Invesis US market strategy is moving forward at pace.