Symbion Power

Symbion Power

Symbion Power was founded by Paul Hinks and Lord Richard Westbury as a specialized international power developer, concentrating on electrical infrastructure in emerging markets. The firm is headquartered in Copenhagen, but its operational gravity rests firmly in sub-Saharan Africa, where it has spent over a decade constructing and operating power plants and transmission lines in countries with acute electricity deficits. Hinks has chaired both Invest Africa US and the Corporate Council on Africa, signaling a career anchored in continent-level infrastructure diplomacy rather than pure project finance. The firm’s portfolio spans thermal generation, hydropower and bulk transmission. Operating assets include the Ubungo Power Plant in Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Arusha plants in Tanzania, the Kivu 56 hydro station on Lake Kivu in Rwanda, and the Mandroseza thermal plant in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Symbion also executed a national distribution upgrade for Tanzania under the Millennium Challenge Corporation compact. Its largest current undertaking is the Angola-DRC Power Corridor, a cross-border transmission project developed with the Mitrelli Group, linking Angola’s surplus generation to the DRC’s mining-driven demand centers. The firm has historically operated in Afghanistan as well, completing the Kabul Thermal Power Plant. In Nigeria, Hinks partners with Tony Elumelu’s Heirs Holdings and Transcorp to pursue generation and distribution opportunities. The firm participates through direct project ownership and operator-of-record roles rather than fund structures. Symbion’s team size and deployment totals are not publicly disclosed. It maintains training centers in its host countries and supported the development of the Jakaya M. Kikwete Youth Park in Tanzania, reflecting a philanthropic footprint that runs parallel to project operations. The firm’s relationship with Lord Irvine Laidlaw’s Highland Power Ltd brought additional capital into its Rwandan hydro assets. In recent years, Hinks has used his platform chairing Invest Africa US to advocate for a harder-edged US development-finance posture, pushing DFC to compete more directly with Chinese infrastructure lending — a policy stance that matches Symbion’s site-level operating reality. Symbion’s architecture departs from the standard infrastructure fund model. It does not raise blind-pool capital tied to a finite investment period; it builds, owns and operates facilities directly, often entering countries before multilateral insurers or Western developers will underwrite construction. The firm’s succession and governance structure are not publicly mapped, but the concentration of decision-making with Hinks and a small group of long-standing co-investors — Westbury, Laidlaw, Elumelu, Mitrelli — creates a partnership model that sits somewhere between a family-backed principal investor and an emerging-markets utility holding company.