II Debt 20: Meet the world’s top infra debt fundraisers – updated

Update: Global Infrastructure Partners has gone up from 15 to 8 in our ranking. This was due to a counting issue, brought to our attention and now corrected, with the II Debt 20 adjusted accordingly. 

Last year, we predicted it would not be long before we had to expand our annual debt list to include 20 members. And here we are, one year later, with an expanded list.

As was the case in 2020, the amount of capital needed to make it into our top 10 grew once again – this time by another $1.3 billion to $3.8 billion. To make it into the top 15 this year, a firm would need to raise almost $2.5 billion, and even the firm at number 20 in the list has raised more than $1 billion for the strategy.

Two years ago, that would have been enough to make the top 10.

As with last year, there are three Australian managers on the list. However, where this year’s ranking diverges is that five North American managers made the cut, whereas last year the remaining slots were all filled with European GPs – of which there are now 12, three more than last year.

BlackRock was pushed out of the number one slot by AXA IM, which grew its debt capital raised by more than $4.1 billion.

Given that the list expanded by five positions this year, it should be no surprise that we have added five new names to our collection: The Carlyle Group, HSBC Global Asset Management, Global Infrastructure Partners, RGREEN INVEST and SCOR Investment Partners. All 15 of the managers that made the cut in 2020 maintain a position on this year’s list.

Something we have added this year is a look at how our II Debt 20 list compares with the II 50, a collection of the top infrastructure equity fundraisers.

Surprisingly, 13 of the 20 on our debt list did not feature on the II 50, which shows that there is a clear distinction between the largest players in the infrastructure equity and debt arenas. All the same, one thing the two lists are soon likely to have in common – at least if infrastructure debt fundraising continues at its current clip – is that they will both include 50 members.

How we compiled the Infrastructure Investor Debt 20

The 2021 II Debt ranking is based on the amount of direct infrastructure debt investment capital raised by firms between 1 January 2015 and 31 August 2020.

Where two firms have raised the same amount of capital over this time period, the higher II Debt ranking rank goes to the firm with the largest active pool of capital raised since 2015 (ie, the biggest single fund). If there is still a ‘tie’ after taking into account the size of a single fund, we give greater weight to the firm that has raised the most capital within the past one or two years

We give highest priority to information that we receive from or confirm with the infrastructure managers themselves. When firms confirm details, we seek to ‘trust but verify’. Some details simply cannot be verified by us, and in these cases we defer to the honour system. In order to encourage co-operation from infrastructure firms that might make the II Debt ranking, we do not disclose which firms have aided us on background and which have not. Lacking confirmation of details from the firms themselves, we seek to corroborate information using firms’ websites, press releases, limited partner disclosures, etc.

What counts?   

Structures

Limited partnerships

Open-ended vehicles (capital must be raised within the specified dates)

Co-investment funds

Separate accounts

Capital raised by infrastructure managers that happen to be publicly traded

Seed capital and GP commitment

Strategies

Debt strategies

Mezzanine funds

Financing of existing assets (brownfield), development-phase assets (greenfield) or a mix of both

What does not count?

Expected capital commitments

Public funds

Contributions from sponsoring entities

Capital raised for funds of funds

Capital raised for infrastructure funds that seek to own assets for a period of time

Secondaries vehicles

Real estate funds

Private equity funds

Equity funds: core, core-plus, value-add, opportunistic

Hedge funds

Capital raised on a deal-by-deal basis

Leverage

PIPE investments