Rubicon Hires Madrid Office Head

Rubicon Capital Advisors has hired Ana Maria Vidaurre from Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) to lead the advisory firm’s Madrid-based infrastructure team.

Vidaurre, who has spent the past three years as managing director and head of infrastructure transactions in Latin America at CDPQ, started the newly created role of managing director for the three-strong team on Monday [1 July].

Vidaurre, who reports to Carmen Lopez, a managing director and partner at Rubicon, is to lead a team which advises lenders and sponsors on acquisitions in the transport, social infrastructure, renewables, and regulated and unregulated utilities sectors across Iberia and Latin America.

Last month, Rubicon advised RiverRock Brownfield Infrastructure Fund on closing its acquisition of a 16.67% stake in Spain’s Vigo New Hospital PPP from a number of shareholders.

Rubicon hired Vidaurre as part of an expansion of its advisory services across Latin America. In October Rubicon opened its first Latin American office in Bogota, Colombia, and will open a new office in Mexico City later this month.

In the coming months Rubicon is due to also make further hires for its Madrid and New York based teams, with the incomers also focusing on deals in Latin America.

At CDPQ, Vidaurre led the infrastructure transactions team on the acquisition of Enel Green Power Mexico, a 1,700MW renewables portfolio, for USD 1.4bn (EUR 1.23bn) in equity from Italian utilities giant Enel in September.

She also led the team on CDPQ’s acquisition of a 49% stake in Mexico’s Circuito Exterior Mexiquense toll roads from IFM for EUR 1.23bn in February 2018.

Before joining CDPQ, Vidaurre was a principal investment officer for the structured and corporate finance department at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Dublin-headquartered Rubicon has closed 19 infrastructure and renewables deals since January 2018.

The piece was published on July 2, 2019 and written by Nicholas Krause.