PE Hub Europe: Actis’ Michael Harrington: General Atlantic deal creates mutual appreciation

Michael Harrington, Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Actis, spoke with Nina Lindholm at PE Hub Europe about Actis joining forces with General Atlantic. Click here to read the full article and read on below for a snapshot of Michael’s comments.

Michael Harrington, Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Actis, commented:

“The consolidation in the infrastructure space is a recognition of the cycle where we are. The longer-term cycle is driven by trends such as deglobalisation, transformation of supply chains and digitalisation.

“As a society, we have a voracious demand for energy, but also this very real need to decarbonise.”

On planned combination with General Atlantic:

“It’s actually part of the draw for LPs – you can underwrite one house but get the best growth equity and infrastructure. Every time an LP wants to underwrite a new GP, it puts stress on LP resources and bandwidth. You’re also taking a scale-up risk for new managers.

“We were deliberate about defining under what conditions we would entertain a full partnership, and the GA transaction ended up ticking a lot of boxes.

“Clearly having a much larger balance sheet will help us grow our product set and investment strategy expansion at Actis.”

On decarbonisation and sustainability:

“Customers of some of these infrastructure assets are corporate entities who in their own need for energy security want to partner up with someone like us. We see the sustainability lens as something that brings value to our LPs. Across all infrastructure assets, the impact of climate over the next three decades can create an up to 27 percent hit on value. If you’re not actively managing these risks, you are not filling your fiduciary responsibilities to your investors.”