As the infrastructure asset class matures, two quite different types of investment are emerging. Former Allianz Capital Partners chief executive Thomas Putter explains why an understanding of this is so crucial
The Dutch pension provider is due to finish investing the PGGM Infrastructure Fund in December, after which it plans to start forming a new fund in early 2012. The two-year fund has currently invested €1bn and is targeting a yield of 5% for its three pension clients.
Following the controversy over the Thameslink PFI bid, after which transport company Bombardier announced 1,400 UK job losses, the Crossrail rolling stock and depot procurement has been delayed by a year so that a UK government review of EU procurement rules can be taken into account.
ACS' takeover of Hochtief has boosted its sales by 26.5% and doubled its international activities, which now account for 52.5% of its total sales. The firm has also announced that it will sell its stake in Florida’s €1.2bn I-595 highway.
Giles Frost, a director at listed infrastructure fund INPP, has said the investment community has been slow to pick up on the strong performance of listed infrastructure, both against stock market benchmarks and unlisted infrastructure. INPP announced its interim six-month results today.
The 30-year concession contract will require the private party to build a 49km stretch of the A66 highway, with the winner to be remunerated via availability payments.
Managers raising Euro-denominated infrastructure funds are anxious about prospects in the aftermath of the Eurozone’s dramatic summer.
Pátria Investimentos, the Brazilian fund manager 40% owned by The Blackstone Group, has closed its second infrastructure fund just short of $1.2bn, beating a $1bn target. The fund is jointly sponsored by Pátria and Promon, a Brazilian engineering consulting firm.
Drawing on an existing partnership, Dutch fund manager DIF and GreenYellow, a French renewable energy developer, have added a further four French solar photovoltaic projects to the nine that they already jointly owned.
Isolux Corsán chairman Luis Delso met with Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff to discuss Isolux’s plans to list its recently formed worldwide concessions unit on the Brazilian Stock Exchange. The business has a capital expenditure of €7.5bn for all the projects in which it is currently involved.
The projects team at London-based international law firm Stephenson Harwood has been bolstered by the hiring of six professionals from rival UK firm Eversheds. Among the six are two partners, including Eversheds’ former head of projects in London.
Aviva Investors, the London-based asset management division of the insurance and pension provider, has announced the first closing of a European renewable energy fund in partnership with SachsenFonds, the Munich-based asset management company.
‘The most straightforward way of dealing with current PFI contracts is for the government to buy up the debt (and possibly also the equity) once the construction stage is over,’ the Treasury Select Committee, a parliamentary body, suggests in a new report.
If infrastructure, like the wider economy, had its private sector debt bubble peaking in 2007, then, like in the wider economy, it should only be a matter of time before its own sovereign debt crisis bursts onto the scene.
The consortium has yet to be finalised and could still include other members. Teams led by Ferrovial and Global Infrastructure Partners are also said to be coalescing to bid for the privatisation of airports in Madrid and Barcelona. The government is targeting an upfront payment of €5.3bn for the two airports.