Gabriel Ho, who left his role as a partner at Dymon Asia Private Equity (DAPE) in March 2024, has joined Macquarie Asset Management as a managing director to support the firm’s efforts to boost exposure to Southeast Asia.

Macquarie sees increasing demand for infrastructure investment in the region amid rapid population growth and GDP expansion, according to a statement shared with AVCJ. Higher quality infrastructure is needed to meet the resulting increased consumption needs.

Ho, who joined DAPE in 2012 from Baring Private Equity Asia (now EQT Private Capital Asia), has previously worked on numerous investments across healthcare, environmental services, and logistics that exist in the common ground between private equity and core-plus infrastructure. They include Asia Medical Enviro Services (AMES), RAM Spreaders, and Asia Integrated Facility Solutions.

AMES, for example, is a biohazardous waste disposal business carved out from Sembcorp in 2018. DAPE supported technical upgrades while health and safety improvements helped the company increase its market share from 10% to 75% during COVID-19, AVCJ previously reported. AMES was sold to Indonesia-listed coal miner TBS Energi Utama [IDX:TOBA] in 2023.

DAPE promoted Ho to partner – making him part of the senior team alongside the three founders and managing partners – ahead of launching its third Southeast Asia middle market fund in 2022. That fund closed later the same year at the hard cap of USD 650m.

Macquarie has already invested in over 10 assets in Southeast Asia. They include leading the acquisition of a significant minority stake in Bersama Digital Infrastructure, which controls Indonesian telecom towers business Tower Bersama Infrastructure [IDX:TBIG], a joint investment with GIC in renewable energy-focused Energy Development Corporation in the Philippines, and investments in petrochemical and oil storage terminals in Singapore.

In addition, the firm is developing 1 gigawatt of solar photovoltaic projects in Malaysia through Blueleaf Energy.