CBRE, Alceda launch global listed infra fund

CBRE Clarion Securities and Alceda have teamed up to launch a UCITS vehicle focused on infrastructure.

The liquid, regulated fund, dubbed CBRE Clarion Funds SICAV – Global Listed Infrastructure Fund, will invest in a portfolio of companies “that derive a majority of their revenues or profits from the ownership, management, development or operation of long-term infrastructure assets”, the firms said in a statement.

It will have a global remit, with a focus on assets including toll roads, airports, communication towers, oil and gas pipelines, water distribution pipelines and electric transmission and distribution lines. It will target pan-European investors.

The move was first announced in March, when it was said that the vehicle would be set up “within weeks”. A spokesperson for Alceda told Infrastructure Investor that the fund was indeed launched within that length of time but that due to regulatory reasons, it could not communicate the news before having a distribution licence in the UK and Germany.

The initiative chimes well with Alceda's stated strategy to work with larger asset managers as well as CBRE's aim of making its global listed infrastructure strategy available to European and Asian institutional investors.

UCITS, or Undertakings for Collective Investments in Transferable Securities, is a unified European regulatory framework that allows managers to market an investment fund across the EU regardless of where it is domiciled.

Alceda, a fund administrator, is part of German asset manager Aquila Capital. CBRE is a Philadelphia-based firm with $20.8 billion in assets under management, run by American real estate firm CBRE Group.