Evaluating opportunities to exploit Australia’s resources boom were among the topics under discussion at a recent roundtable staged by Infrastructure Investor in Sydney.
The US investment manager has agreed to acquire Swiss Re Private Equity Partners, the European private equity and infrastructure fund of funds arm of the Swiss insurance and reinsurance firm.
The Toronto-based asset manager has acquired the 45.45% of Chile’s Vespucio Norte toll road it didn’t already own for €230m.
Michael Horn, with 20 years’ experience in areas such as infrastructure and structured finance across Asia, has joined law firm Clyde & Co as a partner. His past deals included the A$695m acquisition and refinancing of Sydney’s Cross City Tunnel.
The French fund manager is the largest shareholder in the consortium that has just closed the €2.28bn Nimes-Montpellier high-speed rail line – the last PPP in France’s ambitious high-speed rail programme – backed by a club of 13 banks.
With necessary but controversial privatisations underway, Australian states are looking to the Superannuation funds to prove their commitment to their home market
The publicly listed Austrian developer’s current chief executive, Hans Peter Haselsteiner, at the end of last week announced his intention to resign – probably in June 2014 – and designated Thomas Birtel, who has been with the firm since 1996, as his successor.
But the $627bn sovereign wealth fund’s infrastructure team still managed to have an ‘active’ year, with acquisitions including stakes in Gassled, Norway’s gas pipeline network, MAp Airports and Thames Water. ADIA has also merged its real estate and infrastructure divisions.
The Australian fund manager has committed an additional A$22m to Interlink Roads, owner and operator of Sydney’s M5 South West Motorway. AMP has been an investor in Interlink since 1998 and has a 15.4% stake.
The $627bn sovereign wealth fund has merged its Real Estate Department and Infrastructure Department as it seeks to streamline functions.
Pedro Passos Coelho (pictured) told parliament his government is targeting renegotiations, especially in the roads sector, that will save the state some €4bn to €4.5bn over the life of the country’s public-private partnership contracts.
The £2bn Pensions Infrastructure Platform is shaping up to be the UK’s answer to Australia’s Industry Funds Management.
Head of infrastructure asset management for Europe Niall Mils (pictured) expects a £40bn roads sell-off using an investment model based on the utility industry's regulated asset return model. Mills expects the government to retain volume traffic risk ‘in the majority of cases’.
René Kassis is heading a team of four at La Banque Postale’s asset management division working on a new infrastructure and real estate senior debt fund. The fund will target primary and secondary deals across Europe and is expected to reach a first close by the fall.
A consortium led by Hochtief PPP Solutions and Meridiam Infrastructure has reached financial close on a 30-year contract to design, build, finance, operate and maintain San Francisco’s Presidio Parkway – the first Californian PPP to result from a new statute.