Albacore Capital Group has launched an infrastructure debt strategy and has hired a four-member investment team from UBS to lead the new offering.

The European credit specialist said that infrastructure debt is “a natural extension of AlbaCore’s credit expertise”, noting increasing convergence in sponsor activity across the European corporate and infrastructure landscape.

The firm also highlighted ongoing demand for European infrastructure, which is playing a part in the move towards energy and digital transformation.

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Leading the team is Viktor Kozel who joins AlbaCore as a managing director. He has over 18 years of experience in the industry, most recently as head of infrastructure debt at UBS Asset Management.

He will report to Matthew Courey, partner, president and chief operating officer at AlbaCore.

The other members of the infrastructure debt team, all of whom were previously at UBS, are Ciara Halleman, Thibault Pontaut and Margherita Mascia.

Halleman and Pontaut join as directors and have over 25 years of collective experience in infrastructure debt across advisory and finance.

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Mascia joins as an associate having worked as an analyst in UBS’s infrastructure debt team for the last three years.

All three team members will report to Kozel.

“AlbaCore’s expansion into infrastructure debt positions us to capture new opportunities and meet our clients with even greater flexibility,” said Courey. “We are excited to have Viktor and the team join AlbaCore. They are a strong team, well respected in the industry, and have a solid track record. We look forward to the team leveraging their expertise and relationships to develop this new client offering.”

Kozel added: “The team and I are delighted to be joining AlbaCore to capitalise on the growth opportunity for infrastructure debt in Europe by developing a dedicated capability to meet client demand and deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns.

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“The synergies with AlbaCore’s existing platform across private and liquid credit make it an attractive offering for sponsors and investors.”

AlbaCore manages $11bn (£8bn) in assets under management across private capital solutions, direct lending, opportunistic and dislocated credit, collateralised loan obligations and structured products.