Brian Chase joins Quinbrook as ‘significant expansion’ planned

The industry veteran will lead a new capital formation team at Quinbrook, having previously served as managing director at BlackRock.

Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners has recruited BlackRock managing director Brian Chase to lead a new capital formation unit at the group.

Chase, who worked in the alternative solutions group at BlackRock Alternative Investors since December 2016, has joined the low carbon-focused fund manager in New York as a managing director and head of capital formation and investor engagement.

Chase will lead efforts for the capital formation and investor engagement team globally, while Mark Burrows, who joined Quinbrook from Foresight Group in 2016, leads investor engagement in the UK and Europe. Chase told affiliate publication Infrastructure Investor that he expected to add further members to the team in the coming months.

Quinbrook is currently in market with the Quinbrook Renewables Impact Fund, a UK-focused strategy targeting £500 million ($709 million; €581 million) that was launched towards the end of last year.

However, David Scaysbrook, managing partner of Quinbrook said in a statement that the firm was preparing for a “significant expansion of our investment strategies”, including in renewable power and industrial decarbonisation. Chase said this was likely to be in the shape of a new vehicle similar to Quinbrook’s Low Carbon Power Fund, its $1.6 billion flagship fund closed in 2019, which targets deals in UK, US and Australia.

He added the new product will likely be broader in scope, and, in addition to solar-plus-storage deals – similar to Quinbrook’s landmark 2019 Nevada transaction – will also target what he described as “green data centres”, a sector Quinbrook entered in December, in the US.

Chase said he was attracted to the role with Quinbrook as he believed they deliver a “truly differentiated strategy” in the sector, having first met Scaysbrook and co-founder Rory Quinlan when Chase was a partner at Campbell Lutyens between 2010 and 2016. He has also previously held roles at the World Bank and within the Carlyle Group’s infrastructure team.

This article first appeared in affiliate publication Infrastructure Investor