New UK infra fund suspends £200m fundraise

An infrastructure fund led by former advisors to John Laing Infrastructure Fund hoping to raise £200 million ($267.6 million; €226.9 million) on London’s stock exchange has suspended fundraising.

The Tri-Pillar Infrastructure Fund revealed its intention to list on London’s main market four weeks ago following its creation by JLIF co-founder Andrew Charlesworth. He was joined by Ian Ruddock, former strategic advisor to JLIF and Vikki Everett, a former external consultant to the fund.

However, the vehicle revealed this week it has postponed the process following a lack of progress on its maiden deal. Tri-Pillar said it had been told it would be granted exclusivity on a “significant potential acquisition” by the beginning of this week and had thus extended the 5 December deadline for fundraising. It had planned an admission to the market on 8 December, but the opportunity has not developed as planned and the fund has now deferred fundraising until an unspecified time next year.

“Despite the continued progress made by [the investment advisor] in developing that acquisition opportunity, due to the absence of any definitive outcome, the company has decided to postpone any further public fundraising activity until 2018 subject to market conditions,” it said in a statement.

Tri-Pillar was set to be “fundamentally different from traditional infrastructure funds”, according to Charlesworth. It had been targeting a combination of demand-based and availability-based assets balanced between Europe and the US and said last month it was in advanced or active discussions for assets totalling £190 million. The group had also brought on board Norman Anderson, president and chief executive of US advisory firm CG/LA Infrastructure, as chief development officer.

Charlesworth departed from his role at JLIF in May and told Infrastructure Investor last month that “over the last year or so at JLIF I saw the opportunity shifting from PPP, government-backed availability-based assets and more towards the international market”.

Tri-Pillar declined to comment on the matter.