Financial advisory | Energy transition and infrastructure
Advising global and regional corporates, investors and governments, with a focus on sustainability and energy transition.
Managing Partner
Yusuf Macun has over 25 years’ experience in energy and infrastructure financing and investments and is one of the global leaders in project financing of power, renewables, and utilities. Yusuf has held leadership roles on the buy-side and sell-side of the energy and infrastructure sectors in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He has successfully closed c. 50 transactions, representing c. USD 25 bn, across frontier, emerging and developed markets. Yusuf has been providing boutique advisory services for c. 9 years.
Yusuf is the founder of Cranmore Partners. Under his leadership, Cranmore has grown to an award-winning team of c. 40 full time professionals, including market-leading transactors, and has advised on a large number of landmark transactions, especially in MENA. On the back of that, Cranmore has won several awards, including MENA Financial Adviser of the Year 2024 and 2020 by IJ Global, ESG Financial Advisor of the Year for 2024, 2023 and 2021, IJ Global; Middle East Financial Adviser of the Year 2022, Proximo; Best Project Finance Adviser (MENA) 2023 by EMEA Finance – in addition to several deals of the year award.
Prior to creating Cranmore c. 9 years ago, Yusuf was Global Head of Project and Commercial Finance at Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA), where he led transactions in the bank and capital markets in MENA. His responsibilities also included divestments, investment assurance and risk management/insurance leadership.
Prior to that, Yusuf spent 8 years at HSBC in London, as a senior executive of the Bank’s award-winning Project and Export Finance team. In his last four years at HSBC, Yusuf was Head of Power and Renewables for Europe and Africa. While at HSBC, he led a wide range of transactions, advising governments, strategic or financial investors alike, and underwriting and/or arranging debt and equity for them, across EMEA, in sectors including offshore and onshore wind, solar, coal / oil / gas-fired thermal and nuclear power generation, as well as transport infrastructure.
Between 2002 and 2005, Yusuf was an Investment Adviser at the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (“EAIF”). EAIF is a debt and mezzanine fund created by sovereign donors and managed by the private sector. Joining EAIF at its inception, Yusuf assumed day-to-day responsibility for five out of the six transactions the fund transacted over this period, in the telecoms, mining, utilities and industrial sectors.
Previously, Yusuf also held advisory positions at Lazard, Flemings and Rolls-Royce Power Ventures.
Yusuf is a graduate of HEC Paris and has an Engineering and Applied Mathematics degree from ENSIMAG, France.
Vice Chairman
Matthew has 30 plus years’ experience as an energy and real asset infrastructure strategic adviser and financier. Matthew has significant international experience in originating, advising, structuring and negotiating major strategic transactions across all classes of energy and infrastructure asset and lending sources. In his career Matthew has led transaction teams in relation to a number of ground-breaking transactions.
His previous roles have included serving as head of investment and corporate banking for Europe, Middle East & Africa for HSBC between 2016 and 2019 and the Co-Head of Global Corporate Finance Advisory business of HSBC, 2019-20.
He has also served as a Senior Adviser to Antin Infrastructure, focused on energy and mobility transition infrastructure investments and continues as Chairman of Ampowr BV, a distributed energy battery storage company based in the Netherlands.
Prior to this he was responsible for all HSBC energy and energy infrastructure activity globally between (2011-16) and led top 3, by market share, Investment Banking practices for Credit Suisse in Energy & Resources (including Renewables) in Europe and Asia between 2006 and 2011.
Matthew has an MA in Modern History from the University of Oxford.
Partner
Richa has over 24 years’ experience in energy and infrastructure project financing in the EMEA and Asia regions, with particular focus on emerging markets and with products utilising both debt and capital markets.
Prior to joining Cranmore Partners, Richa was Executive Director and Head of Power, Utilities, Metals and Mining at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) for the EMEA region.
Richa has strong experience in financial structuring, debt underwriting and arranging, project and acquisition finance, project documentation, derivatives structuring and managing specialist advisors while performing due diligence roles across energy and infrastructure sectors. In her previous role, she had been instrumental in developing innovative debt structures within the constraints of banking processes and risk framework and will bring this wealth of experience in deal specific structuring.
Richa has successfully closed in excess of 50 transactions during her work with Cranmore Partners, SMBC and Merrill Lynch , across Europe, Middle East, North Africa and Asia in sectors ranging from power generation, water desalination, wastewater treatment, district cooling, air separation, metals and mining and regulated networks and the telecom sector.
Prior to SMBC London, Richa worked with SMBC in Asia on various financial advisory transactions across power, water, transportation and telecom. Prior to SMBC, Richa worked in Investment Banking in Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong and India in the TMT sector on various M&A transactions.
Richa is a qualified Electrical Engineer from Delhi University and has completed her MBA with specialisation in Finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
Managing Director
Nick Sinden has over 23 years in the utilities and infrastructure sector. Prior to joining Cranmore, Nick has had roles at HSBC Bank plc, Akereos Capital and KPMG.
Nick is an energy and infrastructure finance expert whose previous roles include being a director responsible for originating and executing European power and renewables business for the HSBC Project Finance team, working on over USD 40bn of projects. Nick has significant international experience in originating, advising, assessing, structuring and negotiating major project finance transactions for greenfield and operating projects across all classes of infrastructure, asset and lending sources throughout EMEA.
Within the power space, he has worked across a range of different technologies on renewables projects (solar, BESS, onshore and offshore wind, and biomass), thermal power projects (nuclear, gas, coal), and power infrastructure (inter-connectors, smart meters) with private and public clients.
Nick is a qualified chartered accountant and holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the University of Bristol.
Advisory Board Member
Jean-Christophe Durand has occupied a number leadership positions in the Financial and Industry sectors in the Middle-East and Africa.
CEO positions in International and regional Banks:
Board memberships in the Financial sector:
Board memberships in the Industry:
Board memberships in Non-Profit Institutions:
Partner
Danny is a leading figure internationally in infrastructure financial modelling. He has spent the last 20 years in the world of financial modelling and infrastructure. Prior to this, Danny held senior roles both as a Project Sponsor and as an Advisor with top tier accounting practices, including EY and Grant Thornton. Danny also spent several years as leader of the modelling team in a boutique financial modelling consultancy. He has led on numerous major infrastructure transactions raising many billions of dollars for infrastructure investment internationally.
He is leading the bid modelling team at Cranmore Partners.
Danny has completed B.Eng. from Brunel University of London. He is a chartered management accountant, ACMA.
Partner
Kenny is one of the leading financial modelling experts in the project finance market globally. He has trained over 1,000 modelers from the world’s leading commercial and investment banks, top tier accounting firms, infrastructure funds and project developers. He is also a leading modeler on transactions, having been a project finance practitioner for over 16 years.
Kenny has played a significant role in the development of financial modeling standards over the past 10 years. He has made media appearances as a financial modeling expert including on BBC, CNN, and CNBC.
He has previously worked with F1F9, Financial Mechanics, Deloitte and KPMG.
Kenny has completed MBA from Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and MA (Hons) from University of Aberdeen.
Consultant
Arpit has over 6 years of experience in financial modelling and auditing of project finance and business models across various sectors such as renewables, infrastructure, education, transport, etc.
Arpit has worked on a varied range of transactions across geographies including KSA, UK and US by providing robust and flexible financial models and feasibility analysis on different transactions.
Arpit has completed B.Tech. (Information Technology) from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology.
Associate Director
Himanshu has over 5 years of experience in Project Finance (Bid advisory and Procurement advisory), Financial Modelling and Transaction Structuring. Worked across sectors such as renewables (solar, wind, battery storage), desalination/ IWPs, social infrastructure., etc. Formerly, Himanshu held a similar role at Synergy Consulting.
He has been involved extensively in all aspects of a transaction including financial modelling, transaction structuring, project documentation, financing and bid optimization.
Himanshu is responsible for leading the project delivery for the client and managing a team of financial modellers.
Himanshu is a CFA charter holder from CFA Institute (USA), has done his MBA in Finance from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance and Investment Analysis from SSCBS, Delhi University.
Analyst
Nishant has over 1.5 years of experience in Project Finance, Financial Modelling & review. He has worked on 15+ projects in various sectors such as Renewables, Infrastructure, Insurance and Real estate across UK, Americas and Middle east.
Nishant has completed MBA (Finance) from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, New Delhi; and Bachelor of Commerce from University of Delhi.
Senior Manager
Rohan has over 6 years of experience in the PPP/PF domain spreading across multiple sectors (including social infrastructure, real estate, transport, utilities, etc.) in Middle East, Africa and Asia regions.
He has been involved across life-cycles of PF transactions with exposure to financial modeling, due-diligence, bid advisory, debt raising, procurement advisory and M&A advisory.
He has done his MBA (Finance, Strategy and Marketing) from IIM Lucknow and Engineering (CS&E) from Amity University.
Senior Consultant
Shwetank has over 7 years’ experience including 4 years of experience in Project Finance (Bid advisory), Financial Modelling and Transaction Structuring. Formerly, Shwetank held a similar role at PwC.
Shwetank has worked in renewable power and utilities, desalination, real estate and mining projects across Middle east, Australia and New Zealand. He has been involved in building and auditing financial models for different geographies including Australia, Middle East, Europe and Japan.
Shwetank has completed CA-Inter from Institute of Chartered Accountants (India) and CFA level II from CFA institute (USA).
Consultant
Sreeharsha has 3 years of experience and has worked across multiple geographies and diverse sectors including healthcare, renewable energy, oil & gas, and social infrastructure. He has experience in financial modelling, bid advisory, feasibility analysis, PPP transaction advisory, etc.
Sreeharsha has completed MBA (Finance) from Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode; and B.Tech. (Mechanical) from Indian Institute of Technology Patna.
Consultant
Yash has over 5 years of experience in financial modelling and auditing of project finance and business models across various sectors such as renewables, infrastructure, education, transport, etc.
Yash has worked on a varied range of transactions across geographies including KSA, UK and US by providing robust and flexible financial models and feasibility analysis on different transactions.
Yash has completed PGDM (Finance) from IILM Institute for Business & Management; and B.com from Sri Aurobindo College, Delhi University
Director
Umang has excellent competence in the field of financial modelling and VBA with over thirteen years of rich experience in working across different industries like renewables and conventional energy, desalination, utilities, oil & gas, mining and transport infrastructure. He has successfully supported clients all across the globe by providing robust and flexible financial models.
He has extensive experience in bid submissions and has achieved Financial Close on nine transactions.
He is leading the bid modelling team at Cranmore Partners.
Umang has completed PGDBM (Finance) from ITM, Navi Mumbai, India; and B.Tech. (Information Technology) from Dehradun Institute of Technology, 2002 to 2006.
Director
Aditya has excellent competence in the field of financial modelling and VBA with over fifteen years of rich experience working across different industries like renewables and conventional energy, desalination, utilities, social infrastructure, and transport infrastructure. He has successfully supported clients all across the globe by providing robust and flexible financial models.
He has extensive experience in bid submissions and has achieved Financial Close on multiple transactions.
He is leading the bid modelling team at Cranmore Partners.
Aditya has completed PGDBM (Finance) from EMPI B-School, New Delhi, India and B.com(H) from Delhi University.
Senior Associate
Kaustubh Deshpande has ~3 years of experience in bid advisory and procurement advisory, financial modelling and transaction structuring.
Kaustubh has also worked as an analyst with the investment banking team at HSBC, where he was involved in creating pitchbooks involving target profiling and in-depth financial and operational benchmarking and due diligence and preparation of models involving relative valuation, discounted cash flow, merger model and leveraged buyouts.
Kaustubh has worked in power and utilities’ infrastructure transactions across Africa in a wide range of countries including South Africa, Ghana, Niger, Namibia. He has also worked on procurement advisory for wind projects in Kazakhstan. He has been involved extensively in all aspects of a transaction including financial modelling, transaction structuring, project documentation, financing and bid optimization.
Kaustubh holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management.
