Analyst/Associate, Financial Modeller, Octopus Australia

This is an opportunity to join the Octopus office in either Melbourne to focus on the launch and ongoing delivery of Octopus Australia renewable energy funds. The successful applicant will be able to join a team in Australia during an exciting period of growth as the country accelerates the transition away from coal towards renewables.

About Octopus

At Octopus we’re transforming the industries we operate in and improving the lives of millions of people. We’ve built market-leading positions in a number of specialist sectors, including smaller company financing, renewable energy, healthcare and property finance. We employ in excess of 750 people and manage more than £8.3 billion on behalf of more than 50,000 investors. Our products don’t just help real people solve real life problems; they also make a positive impact on the world around us.

From a standing start in 2010, Octopus grew its energy business rapidly to become Europe’s largest non-utility renewable energy investor (Octopus Energy Generation) with investments in solar, wind, biomass, landfill gas, and gas peaking plants. The managed portfolio now consists of over 270 utility scale energy sites across Europe totalling $6bn in value and 2.3GW in capacity. Additionally, Octopus have one of the fastest growing energy retail businesses in the UK, Octopus Energy, with almost 2 million customers.

In January 2018 an office was opened in Melbourne to take advantage of a rapidly growing renewable energy investment market. We have invested in the 333 MW Darlington Point Solar Farm and the 180 MW Dulacca Wind Farm. Plus we have a number of development projects and a strong national pipeline of projects across solar, wind and grid battery storage.

Institutional fundraising is ongoing in Australia and beyond with several Octopus investors interested in deploying significant funds in the market. In July 2022 we launched both our institutional and wholesale funds, OASIS and OREO, and we have targets and ambitions to deploy $500m + per annum as we broaden out from solar to wind, storage and any other viable renewable energy technologies. In May 2020, Origin Energy acquired a 20% stake in the Octopus Energy retail business and licenced the customer management platform. This provides a platform for further growth in Australia, enhancing the Octopus brand and opening up new opportunities for routes to market for renewable energy generation. The team in Australia consists of >25 across Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Auckland

More broadly, the Octopus Group incorporates Octopus Real Estate, Octopus Ventures and Octopus Labs. Our aim is to have an impact in everything we do, and to make a vital contribution to the economies in which we operate by helping people, companies and institutions generate wealth. And we’re always on the look-out for smart, talented people who share our values.

The Brand – Octopus Australia – Closer to the Assets:

The Octopus Australia team here has big ambitions to become the main catalyst in Australia’s transition to renewable energy by being the premier developer/owner/operator of renewable energy assets in Australia. Our strategy for doing so is to bring all the key stakeholders (the community, government, energy buyers, and investors) in a renewables project “closer to the assets” in which they are involved. This means bringing transparency and openness to the long-term services, benefits and returns these assets provide. Alignment of these stakeholders we believe brings the greatest value to investors and will build Octopus Australia into a 100-year business.

About the Role

About the role:

We’re looking for an Analyst/Associate - Financial Modeller to work within the funds team at Octopus Investments Australia to operate, maintain and further develop the suite of models which underpins the fund management, investment, asset management and development businesses of Octopus Australia.

This role will be focused on financial modelling but will have touch points throughout different parts of the business and will provide an in-depth understanding of operating renewable assets and funds management. The candidate will also be exposed to various aspects of the energy transition currently happening within Australia.

Core responsibilities will include:

• Provide support in maintaining and operating the various asset, and fund level models that have been developed by the business to be used in the planning process ensuring reliability, accuracy, and suitability for use. This requires integrating oneself with all aspects of the business to understand the needs and challenges of the business and how the right tools can be used and further developed to support the business.
• Performing scenario and sensitivity analysis at a portfolio/fund level and asset level to assist the funds management team and our investors.
• Ensuring that the various financial models used in the business integrates with each other and will result in insights that support the business in making key decisions. 
• Assisting the broader business in analysing and providing asset and fund level information.  
• Onboarding new assets into the operating asset models from their relevant investment models’ post-acquisition.
• Refreshing models with updates to economic, pricing, cost, and generation level inputs, whilst ensuring rigor and best practice, along with (and championing the discipline of) proper version control in models used within the business.
• Assisting in liaising with model auditors, answering audit questions and making relevant changes to models.
• Ad-hoc requests.

Qualifications

Ideally, you’ll have some or all of the following qualifications, skills and job-related experience

• Fluency in Microsoft excel, VBA and financial modelling best practices.
• Previous experience in a professional services modelling team / formal training in modelling best practices
• Experience in real asset (infrastructure, real estate, renewable energy) model development and operations (will be considered favourably)
• Accounting qualification or similar
• Must be comfortable using technology and leveraging digital applications and media platforms

And to really stand out from the crowd, you will display the following qualities and characteristics:

• Customer obsession – understanding how being in a customer centred business leads to long term sustainability
• Team player – the ability to work with various parts of the business whilst taking the perspective of one team – one dream approach.
• Self-motivated with the ability to work in a fast-paced environment.
• Entrepreneurial spirit and mindset – We want someone who questions how things are done and thinks about how things should be done.
• Technology led – Must be curious and seek to learn and improve whilst instilling automated and digital solutions wherever appropriate

What we offer

💰  A competitive salary, bonus, share incentive plan
✈️ Take what you need holiday
🏡 Flexible working 
⚓ Anchor (our wellness hub) which includes Headspace 
👪 Enhanced family leave policies

Octopus has built an exciting and inclusive high-performance culture where employees feel empowered. This means we welcome discussions around flexible working hours or part time work. We also understand the value of diversity, and we have a team dedicated to promoting gender, ethnic, socio-economic, LGBT and disability equality, to make sure we back up our words with actions. All Octopus employees are given the opportunity to develop new skills, aim higher and accelerate their careers.

Our Values 

At Octopus we don’t just focus on what we do but also how we do it. Everyone to shares our values of being straightforward, helpful and bold. 

And while these are the fundamentals that guide us as an organisation, our DNA goes even further, by revealing our inner strengths: 

• We are loyal: we fully buy-in to the company's vision and believe in everything that Octopus stands for.
• We are respectful: we live and breathe the Octopus values of being helpful, straightforward, and bold. 
• We are resilient: we have an inner strength that means we never give in. 
• We are intellectually curious: we seek to understand how the world works and were always learning, adapting and improving.