Much lower than expected traffic prevented RiverCity Motorway, the owner of Clem 7, from repaying interest on the A$1.3bn of debt it owed to a group of 24 banks. KordaMentha have been appointed as receivers with PPB Advisory serving as administrators to the concessionaire.
The European Commission has authorised the private equity firm to buy Swedish healthcare group Capio’s Spanish division in a deal that could be worth up to €900m.
Contrary to received wisdom, the OECD says pensions will have to be coaxed toward long-term investments like infrastructure.
Pension funds need governments to create or remove regulation to help channel more investments into infrastructure, the OECD said in a recent note. At the moment, less than 1% of pension funds worldwide are invested in infrastructure.
The fund manager has closed its first Canadian infrastructure fund a year after reaching first close on C$175m. The fund will target Canadian brownfield and greenfield projects and has already acquired three assets.
In a ‘blow’ to African private equity, Richard Laing will quit the development-focused fund of funds in early 2012 after the completion of a government review of its activities.
The UK government’s attempts to claw back money from PFI contracts recall the lack of commitment that scared the private sector and forced governments to finance infrastructure from their balance sheets for most of the 20th century.
The UK government-owned development finance institution has pledged capital to two funds addressing climate change and energy efficiency in some of the world’s poorest countries.
The European Investment Bank has launched a technical assistance programme to encourage the use of public-private partnerships across nine Mediterranean countries. The bank wants to get the private sector on board to help fund some €300bn in regional infrastructure investments by 2030.
Strenuous efforts have been made to devise tailored infrastructure fund models. These efforts are not necessarily being rewarded. Here's why.
Swiss-Asia Financial Services, a Singapore-based fund manager with a focus primarily on hedge funds, has officially launched a new infrastructure fund targeting so-called ‘district energy’ assets in China. The fund, which has around €84m in committed capital so far and a target size of €500m, has just made its first investment.
The Russian bank’s private equity team’s plans include a $500m mid-market fund and various types of real asset investment programmes.
3i Infrastructure, the London-listed infrastructure investor, has signed a new £200m revolving credit facility with a five-member banking syndicate. It replaces an equivalent £225m facility due to expire next month, and will be used as a ‘bridge to equity’ to finance future transactions.
Simon Monk, co-founder of Bahrain-based infrastructure investor Instrata Capital, has left the firm due to family commitments and moved back to London, where he previously advised on high-profile deals for UBS Investment Bank. He is currently considering his options.
The energy investor has raised its largest fund ever at $3.5bn after around nine months of fundraising. The fund was strongly backed by US public pensions.