The One Search Podcast
One Search is the original global Infrastructure search firm, and the One Search Podcast is the group's platform for interviewing special guests, as well as discussing key themes in the sector and sharing compensation data from time to time.
The One Search Podcast
Episode 10: Jim Barry
Former BlackRock Alternatives CIO Jim Barry drops in to the Infrastructure investment industry's favorite podcast, to talk about some of the highs and lows of his career.
Thanks for joining me on another episode of the OneSearch Podcast. This week I am delighted to be joined by Jim Barry, who, uh, as CEO of NTR PLC in the noughties helped lead their highly successful pivot to become one of the leading early investors in renewable energy. He then helped form a partnership between NTR and BlackRock, going on to lead and build a $75 billion infrastructure platform, culminating in his role as CIO of BlackRock Alternative Investors, a role he left in 2023. Anyone who's anyone in the world of infrastructure will have heard of Jim Barry. And frankly, if they haven't heard of Jim Barry, then I'd you know I probably can't help them. But you're not, in my view, Jim, you're not a regular kind of talking head. You're not one of these people that we constantly hear. I think you're a bit more elusive. So I think it's great to bring people like this to the table for this podcast and hear from them. I think you're someone that's got a level of independence these days that a lot of other people may not have. I wanted to start this uh um story really kind of at the beginning. You're an Irishman, and you went to, and there's a ton of Irishmen in the infrastructure world, we know that, and we we see them in in London, loads of them in New York, all over the place. A lot of them have gone and done extremely well. But I don't know too many who certainly not early in the story, went back to Ireland, and you'd gone to London, you worked for Morgan Stanley in MA, you'd done a Harvard MBA, you'd then gone to work for Bain. But my understanding is, Jim, that at that kind of stage of your life, you made the deliberate decision to go back to Ireland, and really you've been there largely ever since. So I I'm I'm interested in that. I don't think that is very usual, and I'd just like to hear from you.
SPEAKER_01So, well, first of all, uh I'm Irish, but I'm also from Cork, Dan. And if uh uh if you talk to any of the Irish people who know me, that's probably the first thing they'll say. Um, second city, so it's all that sort of usual baggage one carries around. No, the decision in '98, um, and I had a fantastic time in London and Boston. Um I also bought the career in uh not career, but the time in Morgan Stanley MA, which was a phenomenal place for a young guy from University College Cork to start out. And then latterly with Bain, where I chose Bain rather than going back into finance, as I wanted to get into managing. And I saw Bain um as a real practical MBA in effect to go with the the Harvard MBA. But I talked to a lot of young kids um about their careers, it just kind of happens. And first thing I started is what do you want out of life? Um, the first thing you gotta decide is what do you want? Do you want to be married? Do you want partners? Do you want children? Where do you want to live? What's important to you? And that really was it. Um, my ex-wife Sharon and I, just with two or four children born in London, and our decision was to move back to Ireland and raise the kids at home. And uh nothing more dramatic than that. It was probably, you know, I said three to five years of Bay, and I stayed four years. It was the right time to think about the next step. And so the real big decision do I take that next step in the UK or back in Ireland. And and then in the context of like career opportunity, I mean, you know, it's an impossible question as to you know what might have been if I hadn't gone back to Ireland, but you know, I just had tremendous opportunity. Um, uh, was looking for a small, medium-sized business, was looking to be at the top table and have equity. It was a very, very simple model I had. And it happened to be a toll road company I met uh in NTR. And uh and and and from there, just opportunity grew, and then laterally with BlackRock. But I was always able to do it from Dublin. But you make trade-offs, okay? And my trade-off was that I spent a lot of time in a plane. Uh my kids were able to grow up in Dublin, uh, family was able to stay based in Ireland, but I got on a plane. I remember Larry Fink, uh the chairman of Chief Executive Black Rock, at one point said to me, Um, wouldn't you move to New York? And I said, Larry, would you really want me? And I was in New York every three or four weeks. And I said, Would you really want to move my family to New York? He goes, Yeah, I guess that's what I mean. I said, But why would we do that and abandon them there? I said, I might as well abandon them um where they have the family and social network uh to support. Uh he goes, Okay, okay, I got that. So, what age is your youngest? You know, so uh but anyway, that was um the it was a life decision, and I think that's the if there's a learning from that is you take decisions around career that are first shaped by what you want out of life, and uh certainly I have no regrets about moving back.
SPEAKER_00You know, he must have thought really highly of you though, to let to let that situation ride because I've you know I've known a few people that have been involved in moving to new organizations. I know this was a partnership between NTR and BlackRock, but a lot of people will hear that story and be really jealous, Jim, because they want to have that you know that that ability to have the family in the place they want the family to be, they're prepared to make that sacrifice and and do all the hours. I think you've got one I was doing some research, and and according to Grok, you were you were quoted once as saying you spend as much time on a plane as a the regular 747 pilot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, no, Grok is actually quite accurate, yeah. But at 300,000 miles a year, I think, at his peak. So a little silly.
SPEAKER_00But the people that would love to do that, but you did you you you managed to make that work and get someone like Larry Fink to be comfortable with it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I I guess it's easy for it was easy for Larry and others, certainly up until I left to be comfortable with the fact that I was the where I was needed, right? Okay, and um, but there was a cost. I mean, you know, you you miss stuff, you you miss concerts and drama and things that go on midweek. I was home every weekend, uh, and Sharon was quick to point out early on that being home on Saturday morning was not the same as being home for the weekend. And uh and so with with weekends you get a lot of the kid stuff, but uh, you know, it's it's you you make choices, right? Particularly when you're trying to achieve something in in in in in whatever form. It could be something that you're doing in your hometown. But but but but if you're doing things at a high level that require an enormous amount of commitment, there are trade-offs. And I think it's about being conscious. And I will be honest, you know, I'm a hard-driven guy, and at times I probably made the wrong call. And there was times I should have been at home when I when I was traveling. And um, and certainly, you know, kind of, you know, even though you know I could articulate the the ideal and the model, one has to be realistic. These are tough choices and decisions to to make um on a day-to-day basis. But but I think being strategic, you know, periodically in your life, you know, thinking about what you're looking for, thinking about what you want from your career in that context, understanding the trade-offs is a good discipline. And uh, you know, look no less when I was sort of, you know, kind of 30 than it is now when I'm almost 60.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and knowing that you can't have it all, and there's gonna be a balance, there's gonna be some sacrifices made. I've been reflecting on that myself after 20 years of running OneSearch, and I I gave a speech just a few weeks ago in our 20th uh birthday party, and that was part of the theme was looking back at 20 years where there's a lot of time I you know I can't give back now to my wife and kids, but I I was working seven days a week, I wasn't travelling anywhere near as much as you, but um, being in the home office 20 yards from them, still being absent. No, it it it's it's it's it's very real. Moving this back to that time at NTR, Jim, because as you you sort of uh skirted past it, but it was it's quite interesting. You joined the toll road business, um, but under your leadership, it became something very different from a toll road business. Can you tell us about that?
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, it was under Tom Roche Jr.'s leadership that the initial strategic pivot took place. The risk with hiring a strategy consultant uh is that you know you have a good hard look at the strategy. And uh I joined on a temporary basis in September 1998, and the first thing we did was look at the corporate strategy for the business. There are two very successful toll road operations in Dublin. And the choice was really between staying in toll roads but expanding the opportunity outside of Ireland, or staying in Ireland and expanding outside of toll roads into other infrastructure categories, where NTR had the credibility to partner with people, you know, kind of to kind of be successful. Um, and the Roach family, who were the major shareholders of NTR, which was a public company at the time with institutional shareholders, but the heritage of the firm was hugely entrepreneurial. And Tom Jr. reflected his own father, Tom Sr. founder of CRH and NTR. Um, you know, so it was a very natural thing for that company to choose to be ambitious. And so with partners then like Eddie O'Connor in Ertricity, uh others in ways, John Gallagher in Waste and Water, um Jeremy Nell in Broadband, you know, we found people to partner with and uh and accelerate a business. Um Ian Wakelin uh and Mike Topham in the UK with materials recycling, which became Greenstar UK, which is uh then became Biffa. Uh and Micah is uh for memory the the current CEO. But it's like we we partner with really good people um and and and enable them with capital but also credibility to go pursue real opportunity. And there was opportunity, of which obviously renewable energy, um, which you know well, was one.
SPEAKER_00And and the electricity story. I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong, but but certainly from the outside looking in, the really big success of that whole era with NTR was the the sale in in two segments in North America and in, I guess, the rest of the business in Europe, the sale of electricity, where you made a uh I can't find an exact number, but I'm I'm I'm looking at 600 to 800 million euros in profit for NTR. Um, so that was the blowaway, the runaway success of the NTR era. Am I right?
SPEAKER_01Sorry, I'd say I'd say it probably gets the number one prize, but I think there were other successes, not least the original legacy toll business, which was hugely successful uh in a sale of the Westley gas back to the Irish government. But um, no, electricity was interesting for all sorts of reasons. Um uh Eddie O'Connor um was the CEO, I was the chairman. Um Eddie was one of life's, and then unfortunately passed away in the last two years, and um uh just a really, really dynamic, um, very visionary leader, and very few people I'd attribute that expression to. But um saw the opportunity, convinced NTR, um Tom and I and others to to and the board to back that opportunity. And it opened NTR's view or our eyes really then to the broader, what I would call renewable energy space. And so we laterally did all sorts of renewable energy type businesses in Europe and North America primarily. But electricity really was unique. Um, build our first wind farm. We had to start a supply business in the Republic of Ireland to give ourselves a contract to build um a 12-megawatt wind farm in County Donegal. Um, so you know, from that we got this sort of customer-to-generation understanding of the market, which meant when we moved into the UK, we moved into the United States and other markets, we just had better insight than your classic developer out uh um uh looking for a good site. And and that meant you know, we chose markets like ERCOT in the United States. But it was a classic growth development business. It was a series of of equity and debt raisings. We were always there for 51%, which was was was was important. But you know, at the end of the day, it was a management team, a CEO in Eddy with a with a very clear vision, real entrepreneurial energy, real execution capability that allowed us to build this phenomenal platform in board Europe uh with a bit of China and then also the United States.
SPEAKER_00And and you, I mean, I I think one of the most interesting things about these successes of these two so sale processes is the timing. I'm really interested to know. Were you aware of that at the time? Were you aware of the that you might look back on this as being very squeaky in terms of the timing and the moment um that you that you sold these businesses in? So it was late 2007 that you sold the North American business to Eon for 1.4 billion US dollars. Early 2008, you sold the the rest of the business in Europe to SSE for about 1.1 billion euros. How do you look back on those? Because obviously it would have been many weeks of negotiations. How conscious were you of this sort of of this window that you had to get these businesses solved before potentially they wouldn't have been worth anywhere near that those amounts?
SPEAKER_01I have an expression I use with investment teams all the time, which is never confuse a good dose of luck for brilliance. And and I unfortunately it happens quite a lot. And I think we definitely had luck. I mean, I think if I had an understanding of what was to happen in 2008, um, then I think I would assured the mortgage market in the United States, not just sold electricity. Um, no, I think a number of different factors played into it. Um uh the first is we went out to equity raise for the North American business, which had been a standard model as we had growth businesses. Um and um uh but we found that there was parties like Ian out there that were willing to pay a lot more to own the business than um uh than funded. Um second thing is we had begun to get very big in offshore wind in Europe. We're probably one of the biggest development platforms. And NTR had a balance sheet to sort of deal with any trouble in electricity as it was. We didn't have a balance sheet to deal with offshore. It was just way bigger than what we could come to the rescue on. Uh Michael Walsh, our CFO, Rory O'Connor, head of treasury, corporate treasury, and MA, uh, you know, particularly Rory was very big on this uh point. And around the same point, we securitized a series of cash flows that um uh the Irish government had given us um for buying out Westlink. And we securitized that, and that's a whole story in itself, which I won't divert on. I give Rory O'Connor again huge credit for keeping a transaction alive through a lot of complexity with the government. But um, we got that away in late June, and that piece of timing was as good as anything on electricity exit because the credit markets fell out of bed in July. And so we were really sensitive to that dynamic. So now we had these offers on the table for the whole business. They were materially bigger than the funding scenario. We had a core business in Europe which we weren't going to be big enough for anymore, and we saw stress in the credit markets, which was a huge part of that model. So, again, no expectation of what was to come, and particularly at the scale it was to come, but definitely, you know, we saw these dynamics decided to take the the offer from Eon closed that in September. Um, uh, Kieran O'Brien, uh Declan Flanagan in North America, Senna Murphy, CFO of Air Tristy, really important there. And we we we while we were closing that out, we prepared for the sale of Europe. And um it didn't stand alone anymore. It had that sort of balance sheet exposure. And so we did no broad process. At that stage, it was execute as fast as humanly possible. Um we approached seven parties in early October, and we had a 19th of December as the only bidding point with a marked up SPA. We'd let it drift two days to the 21st, which was a Friday. We picked the winner on the 24th of December of 2007, and we signed on January 4th. And did I know equity markets were going to fall out about two weeks later? No, I did not. Uh this was but but again, like Michael Walsh, Rory, Senin, phenomenal team, and so many others, right? To mention like a brilliant Paul Dowling, COO of uh of Air Tristan, super in the mix. And uh and and it was execution, but there was a broader context, but also you know, if you you've if you start out in MA like I have, you know, no transaction benefits from time. So like and particularly one with as much risk as that for us. Um because again, I've said this to some others, but if we had held electricity into the global financial crisis, we'd have gone bust.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because NTR wouldn't have had the balance sheet to to cope with the effectively drying up of capital and particularly risk capital.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean that was a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01What the business was becoming.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that that wasn't that was another Grok quote that I had uh from you. So I'm I'm glad you you confirming Grok.
SPEAKER_01I must I must talk to this guy Grok, whoever he is.
SPEAKER_00Um and look, you've been very is very humble of you to sort of say, look, you know, there's some that that there are some moments where having great luck is a is a big contributor. There was no way you could have known what was to come very shortly afterwards. To flip this, then is it also fair to say that when you have a tough moment, when there's a uh a mistake that gets made, or there's a there's a um you know a decision that you make that you look back on, I'm sure, with regret. I'm talking about SES, Sterling Energy Systems. Um, is it is it also fair to say, look, you can have bad luck? And maybe that's not not all down to your poor decision-making skills, but uh, you know, you invested in this business and their sun catcher dish at what appears to have been a poor time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so again, uh the in a sense at one level it was it was at that stage of the business, it was immune from the dynamics in the financial markets, it was 100% equity funded. We were the equity funder. So that was less GFC. Um, first of all, and also I might quickly have no regret about it. I mean, we made a decision in good conscience and with uh an appreciation, a real appreciation for the risk. So this was a technology benefit, uh technology investment for the benefit of listeners, and it was a a solar thermal technology, so in competition with photovoltaic, but um the the peak on the far side of that valley of death, which is extraordinarily deep and extraordinarily wide for a new generation technology, is non-recourse project finance. We went in eyes wide open. We separated the development business from the actual engineering/slash technology business, um uh put the good quality management teams in place. I would say to you, our execution was consistently at a higher level, maybe than some of our other businesses in the earlier, you know, the 10 years earlier. But my key mistake there was I understood, I was in New York the on the Thursday of TARP. Uh, I mean, like Morgan Stanley was next. And I knew the world had changed, but what what I didn't do was work out what it meant for risk capital uh for an extended period of time. But in any case, SES was going to die. Uh when we when we invested solar PV utility scale in California on a like-for-like basis was 24 cents. When we pulled the plug, it was down at 12.13 cents, which was our entry mark, and it was heading to where it is today in the very low single figures. Um ultimately the key lesson there was um uh you know what deployed uh wins. Uh the best widget doesn't win. And I would also say with learnings then, and this is definite hindsight, um, I would have split the development business completely from the solar thermal technology business. I would have made the solar technology business purely something focused on proving out a power pilot and having the design for something to go. To launch a technology like that, you need an OEM balance sheet sitting behind you. And um I I have to say, you know, kind of uh it was a big loss. We lost $200 million. And so you're kind of let there be no uh ambiguity about the pain that's in that. And and when you do have a loss, you learn a hell of a lot more than you ever do in a victory. But um, but at the end of the day, it's life. I mean, there's good and bad. But the bad luck point is is is is an important one, right? In the same way you get good luck, you know, don't infer from that you're brilliant. In the same way, if you have bad luck, don't infer from that that suddenly you're an idiot, right? Okay, it's just there are dynamics out there.
SPEAKER_00Coming out of the uh of the GFC and in 2011, the partnership with BlackRock, and this I think took your, I mean, certainly your profile, I would say, to a whole nother level. The opportunity in front of you to go and build this business with BlackRock. Give us an idea of how that felt at the time. Did you see this as being a really huge career step for yourself?
SPEAKER_01Well, it was less that I saw it as this huge new career step. Then I was coming to a natural end at NTR. Um, uh I had been 10 years CEO in July 2000. I was still young, still early 40s. And it was time for a change. There were successors for my role within NTR, and Roshi Magokin, who's who's still the current CEO, uh, was one of those. Um, but uh we wanted to raise a fund. And we did some work with uh uh Oliver Wyman in New York, and their feedback was you need a fiduciary partner. Now, with a lot more going on, at least the SCS discussion, which which we just talked about. But um we we we kind of put it on the shelf. But um uh Tom Roach had a connection uh with somebody whose son had just joined BlackRock, uh, a great guy called Brian Stern, and through that connection he reached out. And BlackRock, having pulled BGI together with the the BlackRock business, which now had Merrill as well, had a reasonably substantial alternative asset business, but they didn't have infrastructure and so and other categories. And so we're looking strategically under Matt Bouteen, um, to who was then head of ALDS to kind of fill these gaps, which led to the conversation. We had a plan on the shelf to launch a renewable power equity fund, and that led ultimately to the launch of the BlackRock NTR Um uh Renewable Power Fund one in in 2011. Uh and ultimately we built a $75 billion real asset business. But um but but renewable power was where it started, uh Global Renewable Power One as it became rebranded over time. But um but BlackRock um is a great organization, and so you know, kind of, you know, I had to kind of make a career choice in the mix because it became clear it it it needed me to transition with it. And you know, I met with Larry and Rob and others, and it became very clear to me this was a company with with huge ambition, uh, real strong values, particularly as a fiduciary, uh, actually kind of very similar to infrastructure, very long-term, not short-term in perspective, and uh partnership oriented, again, which infrastructure is so you know kind of felt very culturally very good. And so we we launched that. And and Larry himself is uh, as you've subsequently seen with the acquisition of global infrastructure partners, always been a long uh term believer in infrastructure. It's relevance to the institutions uh uh and also it's irrelevant to the the global economy more generally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, I absolutely I was gonna get into that and get your thoughts on the the GIP uh scenario uh to the extent that you that you have any. I mean, obviously, uh as really at the founder or the you know the partner in bringing BlackRock into the infrastructure world, um how that was was sort of seen by yourself, where you think that's gonna go?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's it's very hard now because I I was not in the firm when it was acquired, nor am I there now. Look, let's understand Global Infrastructure Partners is the leading global infrastructure investment business. Uh, Bayo and the team have built a phenomenal franchise. Um and I think for BlackRock, very hard within BlackRock to grow big businesses outside the ETF and index business. It's just such a machine. And I think Larry came to the view that he needed to make acquisitions, that ultimately that's what was needed. And I can I can't, uh yeah, I wouldn't argue with that actually. Um, and I think there's still the challenge to make it all work, but certainly, you know, I think if you are a global asset manager, you know, it is much broader now. The relationship with institutions is very broad, it's not just one niche or another. And so strategically, completely understand why Larry and the BlackRock board made the decision around not just GIP but also HBS. Um, as to how it'll all work, that's uh that's beyond above my pay grade, then. And it's just it wouldn't be fair anyway to give a view just because I've I'm not in the firm anymore. But look, I I mean, two great franchises. Um, but look, nothing straightforward, okay? The world has changed for investment materially in the last five years. Um, yeah, as you know, I finished up as chief investment officer of the alternative asset business. And I'm kind of happy I'm not there at the moment. It is a very challenging environment. Most of the asset classes have substantial issues to deal with, most of it driven by the rising cost of debt. And um, and and and and that's not going anywhere as a as a relief. And and so um I don't share the the sort of perverse of doom on on credit. I think there will be trouble in credit, private credit, should I say, but but I I don't think it'll suffer any more uh or less than the market generally uh in any downturn. Um uh private equity has huge challenges on just dealing with the portfolio of existing assets and liquidity. Um infrastructure has a challenge because that classic infrastructure asset you used to love, which was, you know, you know, kind of you know, effectively very predictable index link cash flows, that's changed. You know, there's much more greater regulatory risk. Um uh there's a lot of other risks in the mix of of these assets. Um there are the other development risk, there's operating risks, um, growth risks now being added into the mix. So it's not quite what was positioned, but but when you have to deliver kind of mid-teen IRRs for your clients, you find that you know, kind of, you know, you have to take on risks. So I think all the asset classes have their challenge, but they but but the reality is, you know, they they're they're not going away, they'll they'll they will continue to grow and be a key part of the asset management permanent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, uh Jim, just a couple of other things I wanted to touch on, because I'm I'm conscious of time, and I know that you've got a time frame here. Um, one thing before we then move on to the next chapter, which is how we're going to end, and we're really keen to hear, uh, because there's still plenty of life left in you yet, Jim. I can I can definitely tell that. One big question I've had for you is because you went into just bringing this back slightly, to you go into NTR, it's a toll road business at the time, but it's quite entrepreneurial in its DNA. And then this move into the energy transition, as we now would say, the early, the very early days of renewables, pretty much. Was that something that did you believe in that? Um, yeah, as a as a content, was that something that you you were passionate about, the energy transition, or did you just see that as good business?
SPEAKER_01Although, no, I I I'm very passionate about climate change and I need to to effectively address it. Um, and you know, kind of, yeah, I'm an optimist by nature and and we're retain optimism, but it's challenging, it's very challenging because you know I've seen it through so many cycles now, but the vested interests are so worked up to try and prevent transition now. But the climate doesn't care, right? Okay, it's gravity, uh, it's physics. I mean, it the uh all the hyperbole in the world, all the self-interest in the world is not going to change the reality. And I think the big challenge, right, is governments can't continue to deal with the cost of mitigation. Okay, they can't continue to bear that expense and burden and then have general corporate and individual taxpayers bear the cost. That's not sustainable politically, and that's where it's going. And so ultimately, the external externality, which is carbon dioxide emissions, will have to be taxed, or profits will have to be taxed on the back of it. But they're, you know, we're dealing with, you know, this excessive and exceptional El Niño. We're dealing with extraordinary temperatures in Europe this summer. Like the point I'm making, people is like this is not, we're not getting to a point of stopping. Until we address the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, this will continue to get worse with increasing, and and the only thing I'll tell you what has uh has not been to prediction is how quick our climate is changing. And I think how quick the water temperature dimension, which wasn't fully understood, is playing in in such a negative way to the whole climate dynamic. Um the point I make about economics and energy transition is that its economics have driven penetration and transition today with an element of policy, and there was clearly some key initiatives in Europe initially, and there have been across the world different supports, etc. But fundamentally, renewable power is cheap. It doesn't carry all the geopolitical uh uh insecurity of fossil. Um we have to deal with firming it up, we have to deal with more difficult areas like um maritime and aviation and large industrial processes. But everything is going to electrify. Um uh everything's going to be around wind, solar, and batteries. Um, you know, there may be scope on the margin for some hydrogen, there may be scope for some nuclear, but it's gonna be too expensive. Um, fundamentally, it's cost of driving things, more efficiency, more renewable electricity generation, more battery storage. We'll use some gas in transition. But what's going to happen is it's all gonna have to happen much more dramatically and quick more quickly than if we did it in a more managed way. But but there's massive stresses, and if we think migration is a problem today, wait until we're dealing with climate change in 10 years' time. Um, it's a very challenging period, and the increase in sorry, what I would call geopolitical um volatility is making it much harder. Um, but Europe's got a uh got and with UK in the mix, has uh the EU and and UK and other European countries have an opportunity to take a lead here, have an opportunity to exploit cheap um panels, cheap batteries, and and make and be aggressive on transition. Um I just don't buy the populist politics around this is expensive, etc. What's going to be expensive is not clear dealing with climate change. And someone's gonna have to pay for that. And so all these politicians, when they talk to me, I say, who's gonna pay for this? Right? Um, and so it's it's it's but then when there's all this money looking to protect the status quo, it's hard. But we'll see. But yes, as you might guess from my answer, it is something I'm passionate about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, look, I could I I I hear it. And uh, I just wanted to pick back up on that point around nuclear because I'm I've been pretty bullish on the nuclear front, just conceptually, I guess, into your point on how quickly this power is going to be required. When you think about the AI race, the data centers, power in the data centers, um, it it feels like that shortfall in the next even the next two, three years is gonna be very, very tough to that. Demand's gonna be very, very tough to meet. And then optimistically, you think about SMRs coming online maybe by 2030, according to some estimates. Um, are you you but you don't sound like you're bullish on that, Jim? You don't really think that's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01You are telling the guy who lost 200 million of solar thermal technology, okay? So, yeah, I am probably shaped by my prior experience. A couple of things I'd say. One, data centers, good and bad, right? Okay, this massive growth in energy demand at a point in time we need to decarbonize is a challenge. But the one thing it's doing, which to my mind is absolutely needed and it's going to accelerate, is if we're going to convert all transport to electricity, we're going to convert all electrical processes to, I'm sorry, all industrial processes to electricity, etc., we need a completely different grid system. We need a completely different grid management system. We need much more dynamism in it. And so all the policymakers and all the grid companies are having to face up to this reality because of the economic power of the hyperscalers and their need and their need, uh, which is existential in the short term. Climate may be existential in the medium long term. For them, AI is extended existential in the short term. And so it's forcing the system to face up to the reality of what we need for a decarbonized world. So that's one point. The other problem with data centers, they're running into the real world. You can't just hire engineers and salespeople and suddenly scale. This is permitting, this is grid capacity, this is the real world. And so you're you're going to get a natural slowdown as as they run into the ground. And in that context, everybody's looking for the silver bullet, of which SMR is one, large-scale nuclear, et cetera. So large-scale nuclear is just like, you know, just too expensive. Like, I mean, it just doesn't make any sense at all. I would keep all the old nuclear we have going as long as we can. Decisions in Germany were idiotic, in my sense, to shut down the scale of nuclear, you know, kind of um uh uh so non-carbon dioxide generation that they did. But new nuclear, as we look at in Europe, in in France and Finland and UK, it's just multiples of what you would do to firm up renewable power with batteries in terms of cost. Um and just SMR, um, it's not so S anymore, I would say to you, because most of the examples I've seen. And um, and it's it's I I mean, if it makes it in cost terms, it's still 10 to 20 years away. It's just you just can't bring a technology like that into production and into deployment at a anything like the pace of a 2030. 2040, maybe have a conversation, but then I'm gonna be asking you what's the cost, and solar and wind and batteries are just gonna keep coming down in cost. So again, I come back to the economics are driving the choices as we look at the uh the environment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, look, the the the recent sham share price movements of the SMR companies would definitely support your skepticism.
SPEAKER_01Um I didn't show it them either, by the way.
SPEAKER_00I think you should have I think I should have done. Um so one last thing before we get into the the the you know the next chapter and end on that note. I I didn't want to uh fail to mention the Global Undergraduate Awards because I think it's another side to you, Jim, and something that you've been really involved in. It also plays very well to myself and the OneSearch business. As you know, we've got a real passion there for helping young folks, um, in our case through the Young Women into Finance Initiative. Um, but you've chaired this Global Undergraduate Awards for several years, and I just want to give this, use this platform to to uh you know for you to just tell us a little bit more about what what that is, what that's about, and um you know, and just generally your passion on spotting talent in young people.
SPEAKER_01So the Global Undergraduate Awards for people who are listening is the leading Pandiscian Undergraduate Award program globally. This year we've had two and a half thousand submissions across 25 categories. So if you're an undergrad, there's a subject category for you. And what we're trying to do is identify the brightest minds in the world and recognize them, recognize them early. Uh, we have about 500 academics on 25 panels giving their time um uh this summer to come up with the top 10%. And those top 10% are highly commended. We have regional winners and we have 25 gold medal winners. And we bring the highly commended, and uh the gold medal winners come to Dublin for a summit every November. And the gold medal winners um uh get the Thomas Clarkson Gold Medal, named after an Englishman who wrote a paper in Cambridge in 1785 that made the case for the abolition of slavery. And on his horse ride back to London, he committed to his life to abolishing slavery. And while Wilberforce gets the credit given he was in Parliament and his sons wrote the book, Thomas Clarkson, historians will tell you, was the man. And we're we're looking to identify this talent, we're looking to recognize them early before others do, and then inspire them to go change the world for the better. And we have five and a half thousand alumni. Uh, that's uh the highly commended over the years. We just launched our alumni program in Singapore, we've 10% of the alumni uh in May. So, yeah, look, this is something which also gives me uh a lot of motivation and a lot of pleasure. But I feel in this sort of fragmented world of ours, in this where objective reality is being challenged, I think, you know, kind of uh having a war program that that that that that really recognizes that analysis, that research, that objective objectivity, I think is increasingly critical. So uh definitely um uh something uh for 17 years I've been sharing it. Yeah, that's probably where I've lost a bit of hair I've lost, I'm guessing. Um but no different than what OneSearch is doing with young women in finance. You know, it's these are great initiatives um um uh designed to you know identify talent early uh and nurture them and support them.
SPEAKER_00That's amazing, Jim. And I'll make sure in the program notes people can see a little bit more detailed so that they can figure out you know if they've got young people that they want to point in the direction of the program that they can do. Uh, but well done um yeah for your involvement in that. It sounds amazing. I'm gonna look into it, and you're educating me on history as well in the in the in the at the same time.
SPEAKER_01No one knows Thomas Tarkson, which kind of gives me a bit of a kick, actually. Uh yeah. No, no, certainly no English people I've ever mentioned it to, but uh uh but but but he's he's he no, he's a he's a special man and uh and is a model for anyone today, any person today who who wants to make some change.
SPEAKER_00Good. Well look, thanks for that, Jim. And and and look, as as promised, and in the time that that that you can still give us, we want to hear, and I want the audience to hear what's next for Jim Barry.
SPEAKER_01So I I I'm I'm involved in a number of things. So I've stayed away from big public things. I I had a great time at BlackRock for 12 years, but yeah, that that that's sufficient for corporate. I've done the PLC CEO role. Um, no, so I'm involved with probably five, let's call it businesses. Um uh greenery as we have it is is is much earlier stage. Insurance is a whole other subject I could get on to about actually the canary and the coal mine for climate change could be massive capacity withdrawal in the insurance market, general insurance market for house, home, business insurance, because um, and governments won't have the capacity to plug that gap. But more, I was more and continue to have an interest in risk solutions that we will need in the new world, say around new technology, uh, technology performance risk, um, batteries, residual value for leases uh on EVs. You know, there's a whole range of new risks that this new decarbonized economy will require. And so that's uh that's uh that's a particular age I've been scratching. But I probably, there's probably another four companies across a range of what I would call general energy decarbonization, where I'm either chair or um uh senior advisor too. Uh generally with people I know, generally with a few uh uh Euros in the mix uh with myself. But um let me put it this way, it's enough to keep me busy. Um and then the Global Undergraduate Awards, I have to be honest, takes quite a bit of time as well. But um it's not at the same pace or with the same travel that I used to have uh at Black Right, and then you've got a whole portfolio of of smaller investments as well that you I know you keep track of.
SPEAKER_00I I know that because I've been uh uh thankful to be on a couple of the same uh yeah businesses as yourself, seen you in a couple of the shareholders' meetings.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the one free launch, the one free launch in investing is portfolio diversification. So uh uh I tend to be deploying that strategy a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, great. Well, well, Jim, look, that's been really, really interesting. And thank you very much for being so candid. Uh you've had an unbelievable career today. There's still more to come. And uh thank you very much for joining the podcast.
SPEAKER_01Dan, thank you.
SPEAKER_00Pleasure to be with you today.