Deals

Amber Infrastructure to manage Welsh regeneration fund

The UK PPP and PFI investor has been appointed alongside property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton to manage the £55m Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales, an urban regeneration fund.

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Amber Infrastructure, the UK public-private partnership (PPP) and private finance initiative (PFI) specialist has been appointed as fund manager of the £55 million (€66 million; $87 million) Regeneration Investment Fund for Wales (RIFW).

Cardiff University
Amber spun out of Babcock and Brown’s PPP business in 2009 and is the investment adviser to International Public Partnerships Limited, a listed infrastructure investment company managing over £2 billion of assets. 

First announced at the Welsh Regeneration Summit in 2008, the RIFW has been set up by the Joint European Support for Sustainable Investment in City Areas (JESSICA), a European Union initiative. The initiative aims to create regeneration funds run by the private sector.

The RIFW will provide loans, equity and guarantees “to secure future growth and competitiveness in the region”. The increased investment is expected to act as a catalyst for development of areas of the economy impacted by the economic downturn.

Leo Bedford, project director at Amber Infrastructure, described this type of fund as a “new and exciting way of financing urban regeneration across Europe”.

Lambert Smith Hampton, the commercial property consultancy focused on the UK and Irish property markets, will provide investment management services to the RIFW.