Senior Investment Manager - Infrastructure

Senior Investment Manager – Infrastructure

Nest Invest

London (Hybrid working)

Nest Invest is on an ambitious journey to become one of the world’s largest asset owners. With c.£60 billion AUM today and taking in over £500m of pension contributions per month, we’re on track to more than double that figure by the end of the decade. This rapid growth brings exciting opportunities and increasing operational complexity.

As our portfolio expands, we shall internally manage more of the investment decision making and process, whilst concurrently engaging with a broader range of external partners. As result, operational excellence becomes more critical than ever. We’re building a capability and culture that embraces innovation, leverages technology, and harnesses the power of data to deliver exceptional outcomes for our members.

The Role

The Senior Investment Manager, Infrastructure will be responsible for the long-term investment strategy, performance, and risk management of Nest’s Infrastructure investments. This includes analysing, monitoring, and evaluating Nest’s current portfolio, at an asset and fund level, from a performance, ESG, operational & reporting and reputational and investment risk perspective, recommending appropriate benchmarks and target returns, understanding macro dynamics and return and risk drivers in this sector/industry, identifying new investment opportunities for further research, and maintaining a network of manager and peer relationships active in this sector.

As Nest evolves its governance, this will also include evaluating and modelling new co-investment opportunities. The role will be a member of the Public and Private Markets team and will at times be expected to contribute to the research, selection and evaluation of other private market mandates and investments.

The Senior Investment Manager, Infrastructure will report to and make investment recommendations to the Director of Public and Private Markets, to the Asset Allocation Committee, the Illiquidity Committee, the Valuation Committee and the Executive Investment Committee. The role includes the management of an Investment Manager. The investment results of the infrastructure portfolio are a critical component of Nest’s overall private market portfolio and has a direct impact on Nest Invest meeting its overall objectives.

Key Responsibilities will include:

• Design and plan resources and strategy to deliver Nest’s agreed investment goals in infrastructure.
• Recommend and implement the allocation to sub-sectors within infrastructure.
• Monitor the performance of existing mandates and their underlying investments and assets, tracking key performance indicators, analysing manager reporting and the underlying company’s financial reports, and preparing regular updates for relevant committees and senior management.
• Manage relationships with fund managers and peers and build Nest’s reputation as a preferred partner.
• Oversee the investment risk profile (core, core+, value add, brownfield and greenfield), sector and country allocations within the infrastructure portfolio and report concentration issues to the Director of Public and Private Markets.
• Review complex financial models provided by partners to evaluate existing investments and co-investment opportunities, analyse financial statements, calculate key financial metrics, and project future performance.
• Conduct due diligence on potential investment opportunities, including researching industries, markets, competitors, and potential risks to assess the viability of an investment.
• Review asset valuations prepared by managers to provide a sense check on existing Nest exposures.
• Lead the onboarding of new managers, including working with the legal team to finalize documentation, conducting negotiations with managers.
• Conduct market research to identify emerging trends, potential investment opportunities, and competitive landscape in various industries.

The Person

This role will give the successful candidate access to best-in-class managers across the world and top talent at these firms. Key experience sought:

• Extensive experience working in a pension fund investment team, invest banking, asset management, or related fields.
• Ability to review and understand financial models to evaluate potential investments, analyse financial statements, and assess the financial performance of target companies.
• Deep understanding of capital markets and understanding of the valuation methods used to determine the fair value of potential investments such as discounted cash flow (DCF), comparable company analysis, and precedent transactions.
• Proficiency in conducting market research, industry analysis, competitive landscape assessment, and operational evaluation.
• Strong influencing skills and ability to collaborate effectively across a broad set of teams.
• Strong understanding of regulatory environment, risk management, and governance/compliance issues.
• Proficiency in Excel, financial modelling, and data analysis
• Ability to identify investment risks, including evaluating the downside potential of investments and recommending risk mitigation strategies.
• Experience working in a team-based environment, collaborating with colleagues from various disciplines such as legal, risk, responsible investment, and fund administration/investment operations.
• Ability to manage diverse high performing teams.
• Experience presenting at industry forums.

Please note: The role holder will need to be approved by the firm (Nest Invest) to hold the Client Dealing Function and Manager of Certified Function under the FCA’s Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR).

Organisational Overview

Nest is an award-winning workplace pension scheme, the largest in the country.

Set up by the government to give every worker in the UK somewhere to save, our first-class responsible investment practice and governance are the backbone of what we do, supported by all the functions you’d expect to find in a thriving business. We’re committed to creating a workplace where you can be your authentic self and offer an inclusive and flexible working environment.

To apply or for an informal discussion, please contact Braidie Cole: Braidie.Cole@Sandersonplc.com

Directorate/Department Overview

The Investment directorate (Nest Invest) is responsible for investing members’ contributions in order to grow their retirement pots over the long-term. The responsibilities of the team include:

• Asset allocation and portfolio risk management
• Manager selection and monitoring
• Responsible investment
• Investment communications
• Fund administration
• Investment technology and financial modelling
• Contributing to the development of the investment proposition

From December 2019, the Nest Investment team was seconded into Nest Invest Ltd (Nest Invest), the investment subsidiary of Nest Corporation.

Nest Invest is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). For the role holder, this means working in a regulated entity, and being required to adhere to certain rules and behaviours included in the FCA’s Code of Conduct (COCON), specifically the individual Conduct Rules defined by the FCA.

Flexible and agile working

Everyone's personal situation is different. To make the most out of hybrid working, we've introduced different ways of working, which include (subject to role requirements):

• hybrid of office (Canary Wharf, London) and home working (there will be an expectation to attend the office, once - twice a week, or more, as required)
• reduce or vary working hours
• reduce or vary the days worked
• work compressed hours
• job share

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles and we particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnicity, LGBTQ+, and disabled candidates.

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of their age, belief, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, pregnancy or caring responsibilities, socio economic background, sex, sexual orientation, religion or race or any other legally protected status.

We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought and other forms of neurocognitive variation.

As a Level 2 Disability Confident organisation, we’re part of the guaranteed interview scheme. This means should you meet the minimum criteria for this role, you will automatically be put forward for an interview.

Please note that this advert may close early if we receive a sufficient number of satisfactory applications.