Why we founded Reed Management

Year after year, after more than two decades venturing and investing into the energy, mobility, waste and water supply chain across the globe, we got convinced that the energy transition goes beyond sole “greenification” of our economies and is by many standards an Industrial Revolution.

This unprecedented shift of our backbone infrastructure and industrial base legacy requires a massive investment. More than 2 trillion per annum to take a recent assessment of the International Energy Agency (IEA) as per the latest World Energy Outlook.

These investments are complex to deliver. They must overcome local opposition, secure industrial mastering of transition solutions and deal with changing business models.

Most predominantly, they need combination of long-dated assets, whose lifespan ranges from 15 to 100 years and short to medium-term innovation cycles. In other words, the energy transition can be seen, like most industrial transformations, as an economic oxymoron, as it combines massive inertia and continuous change.

Against this background, we believe that successfully delivering the sustainable assets serving this Industrial Revolution requires new lenses for financial investors to finance this new infrastructure.

No compromise on financial resilience, underpinned by long-term predictable cash flows, but adequate understanding and control of the industrial know-how and technologies to deliver sustainable assets with high financial performance and stability in the long run.

This requires breaking the silos across asset classes to marry asset and corporate, including growth, finance.

This is our purpose as Reed. Whilst we are firmly rooted in the infrastructure asset class, we consider investing in new infrastructure cannot be done without supporting the industrials that manufacture and operate these assets in the long run. This is paramount to align interests, balance value creation sharing, control risks and deliver the energy transition.

Beyond this, we are convinced science should be put at the core of a sound investment approach.

Science is what makes us optimistic on mankind capacity to deliver the energy transition. Mobilizing its most recent findings is how we will aim at building and selecting the best asset heavy solutions, that will thrive in the long run.

In a world that may become more fragmented in the decades to come, we also believe geopolitical trends must be carefully analyzed and factored in our investments.

Whilst we focus on the OECD, the solutions we will invest into will have a global impact, including in emerging economies.

Conversely, what happens today in China or India cannot be ignored when assessing the long-term profitability of an energy transition solution.

Rolling out energy transition solutions commands flexibility, hence our company name, echoing French moralist Jean de La Fontaine 1668 fable “the Oak and the Reed”, as well as unwavering resolve to find the right path to “investability” and maintain it over the long-term.

Through a hand’s on, industry-oriented approach, nurtured by years of experience in delivering in our previous positions what is now Reed investment strategy, we see ourselves as a gateway to sustainable infrastructure investment, manufacturing long-term financial stability while offering attractive financial performance on the medium-term.

Navigating and delivering the Industrial Revolution is our ambition. Together with the stakeholders of Reed, we will make it happen.

Béatrice Causse Joni Fontoura Michel DAHAN and many thanks to all those supporting actively our initiative. #energytransition, Reed Management SAS