Alumni Profile: Mitch Coddington ’73
We all grumble about the price of gas we fill up at the pump, and worry about heating oil supplies as winter arrives, but the reality is that “people don’t think much about electric power,” says Mitch Coddington ’73, a partner at Energy Investors Funds (EIF). “We go home and turn on the lights and the air conditioner and just expect them to work. Only recently has the national awareness been raised - by Enron, by the California energy crisis in 2001, and by the blackout in the northeast in 2003 that ran from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic coast.”
Our insatiable appetite for energy is what Mitch and his equity firm count on. And they have been successful in finding investors who share that conviction. EIF offers investment opportunities to a variety of investors – endowments, foundations, institutional investors, governmental pension plans, even Australian superannuation funds (the equivalent of our 401Ks.) The EIF funds, which over the years have raised over $1.75 billion, invest in all phases of the energy process – from the development stage to construction and operations – primarily in the generation and transmission sectors of the industry.
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EIF also invests in all types of energy, from a biomass plant in Stratton, Maine to hydroelectric plants to a geothermal plant being developed in the southwest. The bulk of their investments is in the more common coal and gas fueled plants, many of which are replacing older, less efficient plants. They have invested in wind plants and could invest in solar power although “the technology of both needs to be improved to make them economical on a pretax basis,” says Mitch. “Someday we will harness the power of the sun – it is out there shining down on us every day. We just need to figure out how to store it efficiently.”
After earning his MBA at Babson and a stint at Coopers & Lybrand, Mitch went into real estate investing before joining EIF. “Real estate and energy are similar in that they are both hard assets, but since the deregulation of public utilities, the interest in investing in independent power plants has grown and with it our business.” The funds are a relatively safe investment for the institutional investors with the fairly predictable cash flow characteristics of these investments being a good balance against their public equity securities.
When Mitch began at EIF, the company was owned by several corporate general partners. Ownership shifted a number of times until 2003 when Mitch and his partners bought EIF from an international company which had acquired it in a buyout. Mitch’s role in the company is multi-faceted, from sitting on the executive and investment boards of the company to handling treasury, financial reporting, accounting, tax and IT matters, as well as being co-portfolio manager of two of the current funds.
He spoke warmly of his time at Rivers. “I had a great experience at Rivers. I see very good things happening under Tom Olverson’s leadership. I’m happy to spend time being supportive.” Mitch is currently a vice-president of the Alumni Council, after spending a number of years as an Alumni Council member at large. He has been a reunion chair for his class and a decade chair for many years. He is also quick to help out where needed, from annual phonathon calling to a request for alumni input on the recent accreditation study.
Mitch lives in Wellesley with his wife and two children. He can attest that the Rivers world is smaller than one might think: He met another energy equity investor named Rob Trevisani at a networking event in Boston. Months later he ran into him at his daughter’s nursery school and learned he lives in Wellesley too. Later still he learned that both were Rivers grads. Rob, from the Class of 1983, works at Arclight, a competitor in the energy investment field.
Now both are doing their part to see that we never end up in the dark.
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