InfraVia hits €2bn close on fourth fund – exclusive

French fund manager InfraVia Capital Partners has sealed a €2 billion close on its fourth infrastructure fund, doubling the size of its previous attempt.

The close on the InfraVia European Fund IV hard-cap comes after it secured a 100 percent re-up, with 50 percent of the investors’ new LPs from the €1 billion InfraVia European Fund III.

As with its predecessor, the fourth fund received investment from pension funds, insurance companies and funds of funds across Europe, the Middle East, North America and Asia, although growth was particularly pronounced from the latter two, according to Bruno Candès, partner at InfraVia.

“The LP community is getting more and more sophisticated,” he told Infrastructure Investor. “They really understand the strategy you are bringing to market and the segmentation between core, core-plus or value-add strategies.”

Candès added that InfraVia’s value-add approach involves targeting assets which the firm believes have enough demand, have regulated or contracted cashflows and, in particular, where most of the growth will come from capital expenditure. Fund IV intends to replicate the strategy of its predecessors, which has typically targeted 12 percent IRRs.

Candès was unequivocal in believing that, despite the increased size of the fund, InfraVia can maintain its mid-market strategy, explaining the manager assesses the enterprise value of companies before investment to ensure they remain in the mid-market space.

InfraVia’s latest fund agreed its first investment at the beginning of June, acquiring acute healthcare group Mater Private in Ireland from HarbourVest. The deal was InfraVia’s third in Ireland following Fund II’s investment in telecoms tower owner Cignal and Fund III’s acquisition of nursing home operator CareChoice.