Invest Europe Leader Interviews: Anna Baumbach, Palladio Partners

What I find fascinating about infrastructure investments is first and foremost the fact that we are in the center of some of the biggest and most important developments that our society is currently undergoing.

My name is Anna Bombach and I'm a partner at Paladio Partners. Paladio is a German asset management firm focusing on real assets namely infrastructure, private equity and private debt. Our clients include pension funds and insurance companies.

So at the end of the day, we help investing our pensions money into infrastructure projects which then foster growth. What I like about investing in infrastructure is the fact that we are part of something bigger. We do not only invest but we create better future for us and for our children.

What I find fascinating about infrastructure investments is first and foremost the fact that we are in the center of some of the biggest and most important developments that our society is currently undergoing, namely energy transition and digitalization.

As infrastructure investors, we help transitioning our economy towards less carbon intense, more sustainable and more independent one. It means for example investments in renewable energy assets, storage, energy transition, but also sustainable solutions around topics like for example heating, cooling or mobility. Another important topic for infrastructure investors is digitalization.

This means investments for example in data centers or fiber which help removing inequalities between more and less urbanized areas. And the recent breakthroughs around AI only accelerated this trend exponentially. Another topic of interest is sustainable mobility as we are facing shift uh towards electrification of mobility and shift from road transport towards rail and waterways as well as public transportation.

As we are witnessing a changing demographics, we need to make sure that the basic needs of our aging and increasingly urbanized society are being fulfilled. This means investments in social infrastructure like for example care homes, hospitals, schools or student housing as well as provision of for example water supply or waste treatment.

As Paladio, we want to be a part of a more sustainable future, not only via our investments, but also through our participation in various business associations and initiatives. We were one of the funding partners of LTIA, now invest Europe.