Chart of the Week: Current geographical investment

LP geographical investment for September 

Infrastructure Investor’s Research & Analytics team produces a snapshot of its database each month, which allows the team to comment on the investment activities of the global Limited Partner (LP) community. This month’s snapshot reveals that North America is the region that most of the 1,394 LPs on its database currently have exposure to.   

832 LPs have made investments into funds that have exposure to North America, such as the BlackRockNTR Renewable Power Fund, which has a target of $1.5 billion. 696 and 621 LPs have exposure to Western Europe and Asia-Pacific respectively.

It is not surprising that North America and Western Europe have been the most popular regions for LPs. This is because the majority of LPs are based in these regions and they tend to invest domestically, as these markets are more familiar to them. California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and North Carolina State Treasury are examples of LPs that have made previous commitments to North American focused funds. Greater Manchester Pension Fund and West Yorkshire Pension Fund are just a couple of the LPs committing to funds exposed to Western Europe, such as the Barclays Integrated Infrastructure fund. 

Investment activity in emerging markets is variable between different regions. Asia-Pacific seems to be more of an attractive region for LPs compared with Latin America, hinting that there have been more opportunities for LPs in the region to date.

A low proportion of LPs have invested in funds exposed to Central & Eastern Europe and Middle East/Africa, a reflection of the relative lack of funds that have focused on these regions.