Campbell Lutyens opens local office, appoints lead

Global private capital advisory group Campbell Lutyens has hired former QIC infrastructure specialist Peter Siapikoudis as a managing director in its newly opened Melbourne office.

Siapikoudis' association with Campbell Lutyens dates back to 2018 when he joined as an independent advisor.

Now, he will lead the group's inaugural Australian office and run the Australasian region focusing on fund placement and secondary transactions in response to increasing demand from fund managers and investors.

The new head of Australasia has a long career in real assets investing on behalf of super funds, global fund managers and asset consultants.

He most recently managed QIC's $2 billion unlisted infrastructure portfolio as well as the infrastructure team's research program.

In 2018, Siapikoudis spent two years as managing director of real assets consultancy Atticus Capital.

Earlier, he was chief executive and portfolio manager of Hastings Funds Management's infrastructure fund for six years before heading up the organisation's Australian mandates business platform.

Other roles include manager of infrastructure at UniSuper for seven years.

He also spent two years at Frontier Advisors as head of infrastructure and a further five years at Mercer as an actuarial analyst and investment consultant.

Siapikoudis has also held board positions at regional Australian airports, seaports, power generation companies and timber plantation corporations

Speaking of the appointment, Campbell Lutyens, chief executive Andrew Sealey, said: "We are delighted to expand further into Asia-Pacific. This new office reflects our commitment to our clients and investors in the region over the long term."

"We look forward to continuing this momentum and, most importantly, providing new and existing clients with the market-leading advice and service they expect."

Siapikoudis added that the role brings his fund manager experience and principal investor lens together to ultimately provide mutually beneficial global solutions for fund managers and institutional investors.

"The Australian institutional investment market is very sophisticated and often involves complex solutions which sometimes integrates primary and secondary aspects of Campbell Lutyens' service offering so it is great to represent a firm that offers the depth and experience in both service verticals across the globe."

His appointment takes the number of people based at Campbell Lutyens Asia-Pacific business to 21.

The team has raised or advised on US$23 billion in fund placement and secondary advisory transactions in the last five years.