by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
According to the Merger and Acquisition database at PitchBook, entities tied to JPMorgan Asset Management have been buying up energy and infrastructure assets around the world including solar power plants, wind farms, airports, water companies and the 120-year old El Paso Electric which provides electricity to approximately 437,000 retail and wholesale customers in west Texas and southern New Mexico.
The acquisitions can be traced back to an entity called the Infrastructure Investments Fund (IIF). When IIF is seeking regulatory approval, as in the case of buying El Paso Electric, it contends it is not controlled by JPMorgan. But when JPMorgan is pitching the fund to institutional investors around the globe, the bank points out that 50 of the bank’s employees are actively engaged in the fund – along with “70 independent portfolio company directors.”