Andrew Maple-Brown Abbott on infrastructure investing

Robert Maple-Brown and Chris Abbott began value investing in equities in 1984 with just $35 million in starting capital to their name. Over the next 40 years, their namesake firm evolved into a boutique of boutiques, with $9 billion in assets under management and a string of differentiated listed equity strategies.

As Maple-Brown’s son Andrew explains in this interview with Capital Brief, he didn’t start his career with the intention of joining the family business, where he manages an investment strategy alongside his brother Dougal. But plans to set up a boutique investment house of his own and a twist of fate over a decade ago brought him into the fold.

Andrew oversees the global listed infrastructure strategy, which operates as a partly standalone boutique under the Maple-Brown Abbott banner. His team adopts a clinical approach to asset selection, focusing on the characteristic infrastructure traits of companies that own assets that are inflation linked, with stable cash flows from long-term contracts.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Did you plan to follow your father into the business?

Actually, Dad discouraged us from going to the family business. I think one of the big reasons was nepotism. Fundamentally, the firm is very much a people business. He didn’t want the feeling within the firm that his children got special treatment. Most of my career has has been away from the family business, and even starting in funds management.

I studied engineering and commerce at university, then I started working for Lendlease in their project finance division. For four or five years I was financing property and infrastructure transactions, then moved across to Macquarie in the debt markets area. I was structuring debt for property and infrastructure assets.