Macquarie hires ex-Strategic Partners exec to lead secondaries launch

The world’s largest infrastructure investor is building a secondaries investment team.

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets has hired Wandy Hoh as managing director in charge of the team, according to three sources familiar with the matter. She joined in December from infrastructure investor Glenfarne Group, where she was head of capital formation and business development.

Hoh was at secondaries firm DLJ/Credit Suisse Strategic Partners, now a part of  Blackstone, between 1999 and 2006. She also spent one year with Pomona Capital as a vice-president, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Bryan Beach has also joined the team as vice-president. He comes from nearly five years at US mid-market secondaries shop Newbury Partners.

The team will initially be  based in New York and will target LP portfolios and GP-led deals, according to a source with knowledge of the strategy. It aims to take advantage of the increasing acceptance of the secondaries market as a portfolio management tool and the desire of GPs to hold onto good assets for longer.

It is understood that Macquarie intends eventually to raise third-party capital, targeting LPs looking for a diversified, short-duration way of gaining exposure to infrastructure. The firm will target high-net-worth and private banking clients as well as institutions.

The growing amount of primary capital raised for infrastructure has led to increased interest in the secondaries market over the past 18 months.

“As you see more money allocated to infrastructure in the form of primary commitments, you can expect to see the secondary market grow,” Verdun Perry, global head of Strategic Partners, told affiliate title Infrastructure Investor in February on the close of its $3.75 billion fund. That fund remains the largest pool of capital for infrastructure secondaries.

Infrastructure also had less of a steep price decline than other asset classes during the covid-19-afflicted first half of last year. Infra secondaries transaction volumes declined by 4.4 percent compared with more than 50 percent for private equity as investors sought steady, income-generating assets.

Macquarie is the latest of many household names to enter the secondaries market over the past year, including Manulife Investment Management, TPG and Brookfield Asset Management.

The Sydney-headquartered firm has A$556.3 billion ($430.8 billion; €360 billion) in assets under management across infrastructure, renewables, real estate, agriculture, transportation finance, private credit, equities and other asset classes.

Macquarie confirmed the appointments and declined to comment further.

– Rod James and Adam Le contributed to this story.