Buy-and-build in energy and infrastructure has a familiar rhythm: acquire the first asset, bolt on the next three, professionalise the platform, exit. The capital side of that story is well rehearsed. The people side is where we see value leak out, usually in the second year.
Some patterns repeat often enough to be worth naming.
Hiring the founder's deputy, not the platform's leader
The first chief executive is often the person who ran the first asset. They are excellent at that asset. They may not be the person to run six of them across three regulatory regimes, and the board tends to find that out later than it would like.
Treating the operating team as an afterthought
Deal teams move quickly and want a chief executive and a chief financial officer in place. Asset management, development and commercial leadership get hired reactively, often under pressure, often from a narrow pool. The platform then spends its most important growth years with gaps in exactly the roles that create the value.
The platforms that exit well hired for year four in year one.
What the better funds do
They map the leadership the platform will need at exit, not at acquisition, and they start conversations with those people early, before there is a role to offer. They are candid with candidates about the investment case and the timeline. And they use search partners who know the operating market as well as the capital one, because the best operators are not reading deal announcements.