Infrastructure 2.0 Forum 2025

The Beaver’s Blueprint: Engineering the Future of Infrastructure

Fun Fact: Beavers need to keep chewing on stuff as their teeth continue growing throughout their lifetime. If they don’t, their teeth would be so large that they would not be able to bite anything anymore.

The beaver’s blueprint, marked by patient engineering, collaboration, and a keen understanding of its environment, serves as a fitting lens through which to address the challenges and opportunities reshaping the infrastructure landscape.

Re-Defining Infrastructure

The beaver is nature’s master builder, renowned for its resilience, adaptability and meticulous attention to constructing habitats that endure in shifting conditions. 

This mimics how investors will need to adapt to the changing nature of infrastructure, traditionally linked to steady moving factors such as GDP growth but now being accelerated by exponential technology.

This brings us to the question: What is infrastructure? Is it defined by a set of characteristics or is it the nature of an asset? Once defined as the building block of economies, they were assets critical to the functioning of societies. Definitions of the asset class have become increasingly flexible, expanding to include anything that has ‘infrastructure-like’ returns, monopolistic structures and high barriers to entry. 

What does this mean for the asset class? Are all investors sold on this fluid definition of infrastructure?

From Debt to Value-Add to PE — Reimagining Infrastructure Allocations

As a result of the YFYS infrastructure benchmark, superfunds are chasing higher returns in the infrastructure portfolio, pushing them to a higher risk-return spectrum. 

The conservatism of traditional leaders towards infrastructure companies has created attractive yield opportunities for asset owners looking to diversify risk while capitalising on steady, predictable returns. 

Faced with the challenge of keeping costs low while achieving high returns, investors are looking to access private markets in fee-efficient manners, mainly through co-investments and platforms. What kind of structures are available to them and what is the best way to manage these co-investments? 

Turning of the Tides in Infrastructure

Like the keystone role beavers play in building climate resilience in our ecological systems, infrastructure assets are taking an integral role in sustaining our earth’s climate. 

Return compressions in solar and wind combined with bottlenecks in grid connection has investors looking at alternative ways to access the energy transition. Meanwhile, investors are scrutinising whether the legacy of clean-energy tailwinds introduced under Biden will persist with Trump back in power. 

How are investors approaching infrastructure in a fluid geopolitical setting and an era of lower returns? How can investors accurately price this evolving risk landscape and adapt their portfolios to accommodate both technology-driven and climate-friendly opportunities without undermining overall stability?

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