Growth Markets

The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund’s managing director, Sujoy Bose, explains how the government-backed GP expects to lure investors.

Claiming investment needs ‘can’t be met by a handful of institutional investors’, the Swiss asset manager is offering its open-ended listed fund to retail investors.

Once fundraising kicks off, CGN’s private equity arm and the infra-focused investment firm will look to divest the portfolio of their first renewables vehicle, the 2015-vintage CGN Capital Partners Infrastructure Fund III.

The Tokyo-based asset manager has already approved the deployment of ¥11bn in renewables and downstream energy projects in Europe and South America.

Meridiam’s second closing of its Africa infrastructure fund shows both the opportunities provided by the continent and investors’ continued perceptions of it.

In his first interview since leaving the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim said private investors needed to stop thinking of emerging markets as a ‘single risk pool’.

The government will assume 40% of the construction costs, while I Squared's Indian roads platform and Indian developer KNRC will assume the remaining 60%.

The joint venture marks a first for both: the launch of an infra business for the Bahrain-based private equity firm and a new geography for the UK-based asset manager.

With upcoming elections in several countries, political uncertainty is one of several factors that may lead to ‘some slowdown’ in the region this year, but the impact on the infrastructure sector is not expected to last.

A first close is expected in Q1 this year, with commitments from the AfDB, EIB and a South African pension fund.