Christopher Casey, the former chief operating officer at Post Oak Energy Capital, has joined Franklin Templeton's real assets advisory team as an institutional portfolio manager focusing on real estate and infrastructure.
Casey joined Post Oak in 2010 to develop and execute fundraising strategies as the firm entered the market to raise its debut investment vehicle. Casey joined Post Oak from AIG Investments, where he worked as a managing director.
Post Oak was able to close its debut fund in an innovative way – the firm brought on only one limited partner, the University of Texas Investment Management Company, to raise the whole fund. UTIMCO committed $200 million, the firm's target.
Casey was instrumental in arranging the unique LP structure of Post Oak's debut fund. “We wanted to see what the market had to offer and line up all the opportunities. This was the best for us,” Casey said in an interview Friday.
Post Oak has not replaced Casey and will not be doing so in the near future, the firm's chief executive officer Frost Cochran said. “We are always looking to add investment professionals to our team and expect to add one or two this year,” he said.
Post Oak was formed in 2006 by Cochran, who was the head of a portfolio company of Carlyle/Riverstone. The firm focused investments on oil and gas production, oil field services and some power and infrastructure.
This year “could well be a record year for private equity commitments in upstream/midstream energy in all investment sizes and categories”, Cochran said.
Franklin Templeton Real Asset Advisors has been building its investment and distribution capabilities with a couple of new hires, noting in a statement “continuing investor interest in private real estate and private infrastructure and real resources”.
The firm also hired Emily Foshag as an investment manager responsible for sourcing and underwriting global infrastructure and real resources investments.
Foshag was previously a fixed income investment analyst and business strategy analyst at Fiduciary Trust Company International, Franklin Templeton’s wealth management subsidiary. Prior to that, she had a spell with private equity firm Fortress Investment Group.
Franklin Templeton, which has been investing in real estate globally for almost three decades, established an infrastructure and real assets team in 2010 to expand its real estate capabilities into transport, agriculture, water, energy and timber.
Andy Thomson contributed to this article.
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