HIG Infrastructure

I’ve heard the culture is tough and WLB isn’t great, however HIG has an incredible PE track record.

One of the weakest infra platforms. Would avoid. 
 

I’ve met the new Ardian MD personally and I think he has a lot to bring to HIG infrastructure.

Curious if anyone had any updated thoughts / views?

Any update on the infra team?

Never understood HIG going into infra other than a greedy AUM / fee play riding off the back of their brand name, which is fair play to them because it worked? HIG's bread and butter is buying B assets at a C-level price, and I've heard even their Advantage fund (traditional MM) had trouble doing deals because the IC balked at valuations that weren't like 7x and 25% equity check. Infra is the exact opposite, you have like 80% equity checks, low as fuck cost of capital, and valuations are only gonna go up. Only way to make money is to take on outsized development risk, but for capital intensive stuff like this I don't see how they as a brand could ever get comfortable.

Probably why their "infra" includes tons of random shit like "infra services" which is another name for facility management / HVAC type businesses....

HIG Infra doesn't focus on core / core-plus infrastructure, and is much more focused on infrastructure and industrial services companies tangential to infrastructure end-markets . The strategy is much more industrial PE-like than most infrastructure funds out there, and also target returns closer to those of PE funds. A lot of larger infrastructure funds have also pivoted towards investing in pure infrastructure to also infra-related opportunities (think EQT Value Add Infrastructure, Apollo Infrastructure, etc.). Personally haven't interacted a lot with the HIG Infra team given they play in the MM space, but I've heard positive things about them.