Fundraising

John Laing Infra Fund taps market for £60m

The issue proceeds will be used to partly finance the acquisition of three assets in the UK and the Netherlands. The fund manager might also seek to raise a further £25m to help finance a third-party acquisition.

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The John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF), a UK-listed infrastructure vehicle, is tapping the market for up to £60 million (€76 million; $96 million) to help fund three new acquisitions, JLIF announced today in a statement.

The three assets will all be acquired from developer parent John Laing and are worth just over £71 million. They include a 37.5 percent stake in England’s Pembury Hospital, a 40 percent shareholding in the Netherlands’ Kromhout Barracks and a further 50 percent in Scotland’s Forth Valley Hospital, giving JLIF full ownership of the Scottish hospital.

JLIF also raised the possibility of trying to raise a further £25 million before the fundraising closes on October 2 if it gets named preferred bidder for a third-party acquisition. The fund manager says it could emerge as the frontrunner for either a UK public-private partnership (PPP) accommodation project or a UK PPP transport project.

“JLIF has grown consistently since its launch in November 2010, raising £189 million of additional funds prior to this issue, and investing in a portfolio which has delivered healthy returns to shareholders of 18.2 percent to the end of August 2012. The buoyant secondary market continues to present a number of exciting prospects for the fund,” Paul Lester, JLIF’s chairman, commented in a statement.

Once JLIF completes its three acquisitions, it will manage a portfolio of 37 PPP assets.