We focus on existing and new-build energy infrastructure projects primarily in North America. We prefer stable, contracted, or fee-based businesses that help to mute the volatility of returns often associated with commodity-oriented businesses.
Four decades of energy expertise has built deep industry relationships and a reputation for sourcing, and as a result we believe we've executed some of the sector's most-creative transactions.
Successful investing in the energy sector requires meaningful capital with significant domain knowledge and extensive industry relationships. We believe we can source negotiated transactions at attractive valuations as a reputable, well-capitalized industry player. Our team's extensive industry experience and ECP's scale, asset ownership, and reputation have facilitated long-term relationships with industry executives and key strategic players.
We work by hand-picking management teams who fit the strategic plan that we wish to pursue in building value into our investments. We actively manage our assets and businesses alongside management teams to execute growth strategies and generate efficiencies. We expect our portfolio companies to create a culture that prioritizes safety and a rewarding work environment for all employees, while executing on a plan of growth, cost competitiveness, and long-term profitability. We don’t turn over the keys to our portfolio company management teams; instead, we look to actively partner with them on all critical strategic, financial, and operational decisions.
Core to our infrastructure focus are strategies across our entire portfolio to allocate cash flows and value to protecting the downside of our investments in lieu of maximizing upside return potential. Having altered our approach post the shale revolution ten years ago, we emphasize contracts, hedges and cash flow enhancement strategies in conjunction with a measured use of leverage to create a fund that mitigates its risk profile. In addition, we believe that a prudent portfolio construction where investments are not all correlated to the same influence or even have negative correlations is an approach that can do as much for protecting against fund downside scenarios as can the structure of each individual investment.