Blackstone Infrastructure Partners appoints Jonathan Kelly as head of European Infrastructure

In his new role, Kelly will be responsible for the “build-out of a dedicated European infrastructure team and the sourcing of investment opportunities across the region”, a Blackstone statement said.

Kelly will begin his new role in Blackstone’s London office on 6 April.

At Brookfield, Kelly also served as global chief investment officer for utilities and data infrastructure. Earlier in his career, he also worked at CIBC World Markets in its power & utilities group.

Sean Klimczak, global head of infrastructure at Blackstone said: “Jon’s exceptional investment track record across a wide range of sectors and his experience leading teams in the region make him the ideal choice as we seek to grow our presence in the sizable European infrastructure market. We look forward to his future contributions to BIP’s success.”

BIP is a global, perpetual capital vehicle focused on investing across all infrastructure sectors, including transportation, energy (utilities, midstream and renewables), communications and water and waste. BIP announced the final close of its inaugural fundraising phase in 2019 with total commitments of $14 billion.

BIP was formed in 2017 with a $20 billion long-term matching anchor commitment from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia.

Blackstone’s asset management businesses have $571 billion in assets under management, including investment vehicles focused on private equity, real estate, public debt and equity, growth equity, opportunistic, non-investment grade credit, real assets and secondary funds.