UBS Asset Management Hires Head of Infrastructure for Americas

UBS Group’s asset management unit has hired Perry Offutt from Macquarie Group to oversee its infrastructure business in the Americas.

Offutt, who was previously a managing director on the North American investment team for Macquarie’s infrastructure and real assets unit, will begin his new role in June, according to a statement Monday from UBS Asset Management. He will be based in New York and report to Tommaso Albanese, global head of infrastructure.

UBS Asset Management’s real estate and private markets group is adding to its infrastructure staff as investors anticipate a surge in North American activity tied to the White House’s infrastructure plan, unveiled in February. President Donald Trump called for $1.5 trillion of investment over the next decade as part of the plan, which included $20 billion of federal funding and opened up business opportunities for asset managers in the private sector.

“We are building an infrastructure team to deliver on our ambitions and conviction in this sector,” Albanese said in the statement. “Offutt is a highly regarded and well-connected expert in U.S. infrastructure investment.”

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Floyd Gent, head of infrastructure equity for the Americas at UBS, will take on a new senior advisory role supporting the firm's expansion in the region, according to the statement.

UBS’s infrastructure group oversees $4 billion of assets and has a team of more than 30 professionals globally.

Other recent hires include portfolio manager Vanessa Lamort De Gail, who joined from Deutsche Bank to help UBS start an infrastructure debt fund in the U.S., according to the statement. Alex Leung will join the asset manager’s infrastructure team as a research analyst in New York. Leung previously worked as an equity analyst focused on U.S. energy and the industrials sector at Sanford C. Bernstein.