🎥 Stonepeak Credit's Ryan Roberge - building an infrastructure credit strategy

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.

Today’s conversation unpacks an emerging category within infrastructure investing that has a compelling set of market forces and mega trend tailwinds.

We sat down in Stonepeak’s New York office with Stonepeak Credit Partner and Senior Managing Director Ryan Roberge.

Ryan brings a diverse set of experiences to bear that helped him build an infrastructure credit business at Stonepeak. He previously covered the energy and infrastructure sectors for King Street, a New York-based hedge fund focused on distressed, special situations, and event driven credit investing. Prior to King Street, Ryan worked in the Energy group at TPG Capital, a large global alternative asset manager. Ryan started his career in Credit Suisse’s Energy Investment Banking Group. He received a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Louisiana State University.

Ryan and I had a fascinating conversation on why infrastructure credit’s time is now. We covered:

How Ryan’s background across energy investment banking, energy private equity, and distressed and special situations energy and infrastructure investing all help when investing in infrastructure credit.

Why infrastructure credit is a specialized, capital-intensive strategy.

How to underwrite data center risk.

Contrarian AI insights.

The biggest risks in infrastructure credit investing.

How and why infrastructure credit is different from other areas of private credit and direct lending.

How a specialist investment platform can help inform where to invest in infrastructure credit.

Thanks Ryan for coming on the podcast to share your expertise, wisdom, and passion for infrastructure and credit.

Thanks for reading Alt Goes Mainstream! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work - writing and podcasting about the convergence of private markets and private wealth since December 2020.

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Show Notes

00:00 Hard Asset Diversification

00:25 Welcome to Alt Goes Mainstream

01:01 Message from our Sponsor, Ultimus

02:06 Meet Ryan Roberge

04:16 Ryan Career Origins

04:52 From Banking to TPG

05:30 Distressed Credit at King Street

06:13 Equity Lessons for Credit

07:13 Downside First Mindset

07:59 What Is Infrastructure Credit

08:19 Three Core Sectors

08:37 Asset Level Underwriting

09:14 Capital Intensive Returns

10:07 Thinking Like an Owner

10:38 Macro Tailwinds and Funding Gap

11:21 Why Direct Lending Misses It

12:59 Construction and Value Underwrite

13:47 Capital Markets Spectrum

16:03 Infra Credit vs Direct Lending

18:31 Middle Market First Lien Focus

19:53 Portfolio Fit and Diversification

25:29 Data Centers Hard Asset Tech Risk

26:40 Underwriting Data Center Terminal Value

28:25 Are Investors Missing Risks

29:00 Deal Structures and Loan to Cost

30:31 Investing Across the Value Chain

32:01 Mobile Power and Cycle Risk

33:15 Long Duration View Ahead

33:37 Loan Horizon Framework

34:26 Asset First Underwriting

34:44 Maintenance Capex Reality

35:48 Stress Testing Downside

36:02 Capital Flood into Infra

36:35 Funding Gap Tailwind

37:08 Theme Chasing Pitfalls

37:57 Why Skip Renewables

38:17 Bigger Deals Cheaper Money

38:48 ABF Insurance Capital Rise

39:15 Non-IG Hard Asset Risk

40:13 Why Not Investment Grade

40:27 Key Underwriting Risks

40:37 True Loan to Value

41:07 Fiber To Home Case Study

42:17 Growth Platform Underwrite

43:10 Skills For Infra Credit

43:28 Team Backgrounds

44:39 Downside Ownership Mindset

45:26 Contrarian AI Insight

46:25 Circular Demand Warning

49:07 Data Center Risk Playbook

51:52 Investor Demand And Wrap Up

Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant.

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