I Squared's Dr. Sadek Wahba - it's time to "Build"

Michael Sidgmore (0:00)

Welcome back to the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. I'm here live in I Squared's office in Miami for a conversation with Dr. Sadek Wahba. Fascinating discussion with someone who has really seen it all in infrastructure, from working at the World Bank to investing at Morgan Stanley, now starting I Squared, a $60 billion infrastructure specialist, mainly focused on the mid-market across credit, infrastructure equity, infrastructure technology. We had such a fascinating conversation about the nuances of infrastructure and what it takes to navigate the challenges across government, public-private partnership, and how to invest private capital in a thoughtful, responsible, and risk-mindful way, which speaks to some of the things that Sadek and the team have done around his book, Build, which I think should be required reading for anyone looking to invest in infrastructure, as well as their risk framework, which is really driven how they think about infrastructure investing. So, so many things that we covered across what's unique about the middle market, how different governments think about infrastructure, regulating infrastructure, what the risks are around infrastructure. Such a great conversation. I learned a ton, so really excited to get into the podcast.

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Sadek, welcome to the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast.

Sadek Wahba (2:43)

Great. Thank you for having me.

Michael Sidgmore (2:44)

Well, now thank you for having me. I'm dressed in my, I guess my Miami uniform. We're here in Miami wearing a T-shirt. I usually do a long-sleeve shirt, but I'm dressed in my Miami uniform.

Sadek Wahba (2:54)

I don't have a tie. I love it.

Michael Sidgmore (2:56)

Okay, good.

We're a little more casual, but I think this conversation will be anything but because of your background, the academic rigor and the approach that you bring to infrastructure investing. I'm excited to combine a little bit of the more casual framework with a really interesting in-depth discussion about infrastructure. We'd love to start, I think, just as a foundation with your background. You have such a fascinating background across working in IGOs at the World Bank. You were in infrastructure investing at Lehman and Morgan Stanley. You started I Squared. You have an academic background as well. So how is your background informed, how you think about infrastructure investing?

Sadek Wahba (3:40)

I think you're informed when you think about whatever it is that you do, whether it's investing, in this case, investing in infrastructure. I think you're informed by lots of things. You're informed by your education, by your community, by your college life, and then by your work experience. And I think in my case, you mentioned the World Bank. The three years that I spent at the World Bank were very informative because it highlighted to me the critical aspects of infrastructure which one never thinks about. You open your tap water, you never think where the water comes from. You take a shower, it doesn't matter. The water has to be there. Electricity, it's there. So you take a lot of that for granted.

And what's interesting is when I went to the World Bank, I saw in developing economies, the fact that most of these services were either not there or poorly delivered.

And that could be whether it's water, electricity, transport, and the lack of that service across the board meant that economic growth was not what it could be.

And so for you to have the kind of economic growth you want, you need to invest in infrastructure. For you to invest in infrastructure, you have to have the money and the capital to be able to do that.

So if you don't have it, you can't invest. Maybe health indicators are not as good as you want. Levels of education are not as high as you want. And so you're in that vicious circle where you can't get out of.