Fundraising

Blackstone adds $3.1bn to infra fund in Q2

The open-ended Blackstone Infrastructure Partners now has total commitments of $30bn, edging closer to its initial target of $40bn.

-

Blackstone revealed it raised a further $3.1 billion for its open-ended Blackstone Infrastructure Partners vehicle during the second quarter of this year.

The latest round of fundraising brings the fund’s total size to $30 billion, with the firm having originally outlined an initial target of $40 billion, for which Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will invest $20 billion on a match funding basis.

Blackstone reopened the fund in Q4 last year after a brief hiatus in fundraising and has now raised $12.3 billion over the last 12 months, according to its latest financial results. The Q2 figure exceeds the $2.5 billion raised by the fund in the first quarter of this year.

“Both Blackstone Property Partners and our infrastructure platform continue to benefit from their focus on hard assets and great sectors where inflation is further limiting new supply,” Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer told its earnings call.

The more significant difference from the previous quarter is the capital deployed, with the fund investing $1.7 billion in Q2, compared to the $229 million in Q1. It now has assets under management totalling $25.4 billion.

That outlay is set to become even bigger after the Italian government – prior to its collapse – this month gave the greenlight to its bid alongside the Benetton family to delist Italian transportation giant Atlantia in a deal which will see the pair together invest €12.7 billion, with an additional €8.2 billion of bank debt secured. The deal will be Europe’s largest take-private upon completion. Blackstone is already a shareholder in Autostrade per l’Italia, the Italian toll road operator formerly owned by Atlantia.

Blackstone Infrastructure Partners is currently generating a net IRR of 17 percent, according to the results, above the 10 percent the fund targets, although a fall from the 25 percent posted at the end of Q1. Strategic Partners Infra III, its 2020-vintage infrastructure secondaries fund, is generating a rather larger IRR of 80 percent.