Julian Peck is head of Infrastructure and Utilities at Morgan Stanley. He leads the M&A advisory team in Australia that covers transactions in infrastructure, utilities and transport sectors, and is based in Melbourne. His team has been heavily involved in most of the large infrastructure M&A transactions in recent years, for example, running the NSW ports leasing transactions. For most of the last 19 years he has been in a variety of advisory roles, and most of that time in these industry sectors. He started his professional career in corporate tax at Coopers & Lybrand as it was then known.

What does National Infrastructure Conference mean to you, and more broadly, to the tax industry?

For me it is an opportunity to exchange ideas with leading tax practitioners on the impacts of tax law settings and, potential changes thereof, on large infrastructure transactions.

What is the topic that you are presenting at the National Infrastructure Conference?

I have been invited to present on the infrastructure market in Australia and the importance of taxation law and reform in infrastructure delivery. The presentation is on Day One of the Conference in Session 1 at 1:00pm-1.55pm.

What can attendees expect to take away from your session?

Our business focus is on M&A of existing assets. So I plan to walk through the infrastructure investment market activity of late which we have been heavily involved in, discuss management of taxation issues on the buyside and sellside of a transaction, and then give a bankers perspective on the consequences of taxation law reform for that ongoing activity. I will leave the technical tax discussions to the real experts, but hopefully I can relate the importance of tax to the ongoing attraction of capital to the sector.

Which other sessions at the National Infrastructure Conference are you most interested in attending?

I was planning to take in some of the sessions on the Friday on infrastructure value trends, stapled structures and leasing structures.

What do you like to do when you’re not knee-deep in tax?

When I am not working I try to spend as much time as I can with the family as priority #1. As winter approaches I look forward to spending most of my chilly Sunday mornings at my daughters’ soccer matches. As you get older I have found you also have to work harder to stay fit and healthy so in the last few years I have taken up long distance events such as triathlon.

Join us in Melbourne  for The Tax Institute's National Infrastructure Conference. This conference program covers many issues that are relevant to our industry, including the capital/income distinction in an infrastructure context, key tax issues on privatisations, financing stapled structures, structuring capital contributions tax effectively and MIT rules in an infrastructure context.