Foresight Group, the independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, has expanded its Infrastructure team by six, taking its international team to 20 investment professionals, further strengthening its position as one of the largest dedicated teams in the solar sector.

Last year Foresight's assets under management grew by around 70% to over £1 billion, and today the firm manages £680 million of infrastructure assets, predominantly in Solar.

Carly Magee, a chartered accountant with seven years' experience in the renewable energy sector has joined as Senior Investment Manager.  Carly will take responsibility for solar transactions in the UK, and joins from Ingenious's Clean Energy team, where she managed Solar assets for their EIS funds.  Previously Carly spent five years as a member of the Environmental Finance team at Ernst & Young.

Hadder Jalil has been appointed Investment Manager and will have responsibility for financial modelling across Foresight's 149MW solar portfolio.  He joins after six years at KPMG, where he worked within the Infrastructure Projects Team, gaining extensive financial modelling experience and advising institutions, governments and government departments on energy and PFI/PPP projects.  Prior to KPMG, Hadder worked at Merrill Lynch International, and holds a First class BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Tom Moore joins as Portfolio Analyst, concentrating on operations and reporting for the firm's solar portfolio.  Thomas joins from Jubilee Financial Products where he was a financial controller within the asset management and investment banking team. He is experienced in private capital raising in debt and equity markets, advisory work for M&A transactions and the use of derivatives in corporate transactions. Tom holds a BSc in Economics from The University of York and is an ACA qualified accountant.

Julian Elsworth joined the team in December as Portfolio Analyst, having previously spent five years at WSP Group.  A Chartered Engineer, Julian has specialised in the feasibility, concept design, specification and technical due diligence of solar projects.

Lucio Favale has joined Foresight's Rome office from Cohen & Co, where he spent three years in PPP/PFI.  Prior to Cohen & Co, Lucio worked at Deloitte Consulting, specialising in financial modelling for the financial services sector.

Alberto Torini also joins Foresight's Rome office having gained five years' experience in banking and project finance at a number of international law firms.  Admitted to the Italian Bar Association in 2012, Alberto will take responsibility for managing the Italian Portfolio and arranging and structuring financing for future transactions in the Italian renewable sector.

Foresight continues to see considerable growth in the size and number of quality solar assets coming to market.  In 2013, Foresight issued the UK's largest Solar Bond at £60 million and listed the £150m Foresight Solar Fund Limited on the main market of the London Stock Exchange, supported by a number of the UK's largest institutions attracted by index-linked yields and the high growth opportunity available in the UK Solar market at this time, today making it one of the UK's largest dedicated institutional asset managers of large-scale solar assets. Additionally since January 2013, Foresight has raised more than £70 million from retail investors across its family of Solar EIS funds and the Foresight Solar VCT "C" shares offer.

Jamie Richards, Partner and Head of Infrastructure at Foresight said:

"We are further adding to our team's expertise with the addition of individuals bringing further  diversity of skills and backgrounds as our investment activity, particularly in the Solar sector, continues to increase.  I am delighted that Carly, Hadder, Tom, Julian, Lucio and Favale have joined the team to support our deployment strategy.  We will continue to extend our activities in the institutional acquisition of large scale solar assets in the coming year."