Long Awaited, Canada Infrastructure Bank Names First CEO
Fifteen months after it was announced in the Canadian budget, the Canada Infrastructure Bank will have its first chief. The Trudeau government on May 24 named Pierre Lavallée as president and CEO of the Toronto entity, which is set to leverage $27 billion in government funds to gain multiples of that in outside private capital for infrastructure projects.
Set to start on June 18, Lavallée was senior managing director and global head of investment partnerships at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), the country’s largest pension fund, with about $275 billion in managed assets.
Lavallée told Reuters that the bank would build on the global investment reputation of Canada’s pension funds. CPPIB, along with Allianz Capital Partners, a unit of giant insurer Allianz, said on May 9 they would acquire a 55% stake in IndInfravit Trust, India’s first private infrastructure investment trust.
CPPIB is investing about $154 million for its 30% share of the trust, which will initially acquire five operating toll roads and intends to make other road infrastructure investments.
Media reports speculate the infrastructure bank, which is mandated to invest in transit, trade and green infrastructure projects, will not make any investment choices until well into 2019.
Lavallée would not confirm to Reuters whether the bank would invest in the Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project, the assets of which the Canadian government said on May 29 it would acquire from Kinder Morgan Canada for about $4.5 billion to continue work. The project, which could cost up to $5.4 billion to complete, is a twin of an existing line from Alberta to a terminal in Burnaby, British Columbia. Environmentally controversial, the project faces a British Columbia government lawsuit.
The infrastructure bank also named Annie Ropar to the dual role of chief financial officer and chief administrative officer. She was CFO of Toronto-based financial firm Aequitas Innovations.
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Gerard Heiber has joined as president UIP General Contracting, a unit of Washington, D.C.-based real estate and multifamily property management firm Urban Investment Partners. He was formerly president of Sigal Construction Corp., Arlington, Va., a role he held since 2011.
Heiber is a founding member of the US Green Building Council and was among those who wrote the original specifications for LEED, according to UIP.
He also is on the Washington Building Congress Board of Governors and a member of the NAF engineering advisory board for the Washington, D.C., school system.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers has named Thomas Costabile executive director of the 130,000-member professional group based in New York City. A trained mechanical engineer who ASME says began his career in nuclear power, he was most recently a business consultant for Carlan Advisors. Costabile also was president of Warner Elektra Atlantic Manufacturing, responsible for its U.S. manufacture and distribution of CDs and DVDs, says a Bloomberg profile. He succeeds Thomas G. Loughlin, who was in the role since 2008.
Chicago real estate firm CA Ventures hired Peter Isaac as executive vice president of public-private partnerships. He was vice president of P3s at program management firm Brailsford & Dunlavey Inc.
The LiRo Group, a Syosset, N.Y., design and project management firm, has named John McCaffrey chief information officer. He had been CIO of Westchester County, N.Y., and also was Commissioner of Information Technology for Orange County, N.Y. McCaffrey also founded his own technology-consulting firm and is on the State University of New York-Orange curriculum advisory board.
