Fortress prepping second global fund

Publicly traded alternative asset manager Fortress Investment Group has rolled out a second global infrastructure vehicle and is determined to collect $1 billion for it.

Fortress co-founder Wesley Edens mentioned the fund – known as Fortress Investment Partners – in a first quarter (Q1) conference call and Infrastructure Investor has learned the vehicle has begun fundraising.

Fortress Investment Partners is a complement to Fortress Worldwide Transportation and Infrastructure Investors, a global infrastructure fund Fortress launched in 2011. 

The asset manager raised $400 million for Worldwide Transportation and Infrastructure Investors, a fund Edens expects to list publicly by year-end.

Fortress Infrastructure Partners will invest in aviation, telecommunication, intermodal freight transport and energy, Infrastructure Investor understands. Spokesman Gordon Runte declined comment.

Based in New York, Fortress began investing in transportation infrastructure in 1998, when former BlackRock executive Edens founded the company with Robert Kaufman and Randal Nardone, who worked for UBS. 

But Worldwide Transportation and Infrastructure Investors signaled the first specifically branded infrastructure fund from Fortress.

Fortress held its initial public offering in 2007, listing on the New York Stock Exchange with Blackstone Group.