Simon Johnson

Simon established Evolution Infrastructure in 2022 with his fellow partners after gaining over 20 years of experience in PPP/PFI and infrastructure project finance, gained in a wide range of organisations through both the private and public sectors.

Simon leads financial and commercial advisory engagements in the infrastructure sector. His experience spans social and economic infrastructure and renewables projects, throughout the project lifecycle, and includes extensive highways, street lighting, education, waste, student accommodation, and ‘blue light’ project experience.

Simon’s most recent engagement was the financial advisory mandate with the consortium for the successful bid and financial close of the University of Staffordshire’s student accommodation PPP project on an income strip structure. Due to the innovative source of funding, the deal was recognised as a notable milestone in the sector. This project followed the financial close of the LSE’s student accommodation PPP project using bond financing. Other recent successes include reaching financial close for two school PFI senior debt refinancing exercises, with a further two underway. Simon has also led a deep-dive review into potential savings for a waste PFI project, and supported the three partner Councils in the South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership through the negotiation and implementation of the refinancing of their PFI project, providing the Partnership with a significant reduction in the price for future waste tonnage.

Simon joined from Local Partnerships, a public sector company owned by HM Treasury, the Local Government Association, and the Welsh Government. While there, he developed and led their refinancing service; he managed and closed eight PFI refinancing projects for councils across the UK. Therefore, Simon has a wealth of experience assisting public sector counterparties in achieving optimal outcomes from their refinancing processes.

He started his career at BAE SYSTEMS, working on some of the earliest PFI and wider PPP model projects in the defence sector. He moved to the UK origination team at Dexia, one of the most active lending teams in the industry, leading on modelling, legal documentation, and due diligence aspects of senior debt lending mandates. Simon subsequently joined the development and construction company Lend Lease, where he led all commercial, financial, and funding aspects of bidding and closing infrastructure projects, with an emphasis on the waste sector.