{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Alt Goes Mainstream: The Latest on Alternative Investments, WealthTech, & Private Markets","title":"I Squared’s Mohamed El Gazzar, Maxime Jacqz, Kristen Guo at Arriva - the wheels on the infrastructure bus “go ‘round and ‘round”","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3816,"description":"Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast.\nMany of you have probably seen the red buses traversing the streets of London. Some of you have probably taken a London red bus to get to your next stop in the city. \nOne of those red bus companies, Arriva, is owned by $60B AUM infrastructure investor I Squared. \nWe went to North London to Arriva’s Palmers Green bus depot to take an inside look at the business of Arriva.\nArriva London is one of the largest bus operators in London. They’ve been carrying passengers around the UK’s capital since 1980 and they currently provide around 18% of the capital’s bus services, transporting 300 million passengers a year and covering 50 million miles across the 100 routes they operate under contract to Transport for London. \nArriva London is part of the broader Arriva Group, which operates in 11 countries across Europe. The Group operates almost 12,000 buses and 650 trains, completing 1.5 billion passenger journeys a year.\nWe had the chance to sit down with the team at I Squared behind Arriva and I Squared’s infrastructure investing platform that delivers essential, everyday services to people across the globe.\nWe talked with I Squared Senior Partner Mohamed El Gazzar, Fund Partner Maxime Jacqz, and Principal Kristen Guo about how they have built Arriva into a pan-European transportation platform.\nChapter 1 - Mohamed El Gazzar: Patience, price discipline in their infrastructure investments, and professionalizing the Arriva platform. \nNotable quotes from Mohamed: \n“We’re very disciplined when it comes to our entry price. The deal doesn’t work, but we like a sub-sector. We continue to track that sub-sector.”\n\n“Data centers need more power. The transportation sector is going to continue to electrify. The housing sector will continue to electrify. As a colleague of mine says, it’s yes or yes.”\n\n“A lot of people buy certain businesses and say, ‘Oh, my exit route’s an IPO.’ But if the market’s closed, what do you do? We’ve been there...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/AFAZ1vkAT92lFJtqt-r0HeFQ55KTdcbJHmgKXaMlAtY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzE5MDA4LzE2MTQ1/Mzk1MDUtYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}