The Pipeline: Antin doubles North America allocation, Aussie investors’ climate inaction, KKR’s $877m Canadian transmission line

Antin doubles down on North America 

Antin Infrastructure Partners was the beneficiary last week of a €220 million commitment to the Antin Infrastructure Fund V fund from the New Mexico State Investment Council, a commitment notable for the fact that on its own, exceeds the amount raised by the vehicle during the entirety of Q1, when only €100 million was added to the coffers.

That aside, what was also notable about the Paris-listed manager’s latest flagship vehicle was the detail provided in the NMSIC meeting by Amy Ridge, partner at the LP’s investment consultant Mercer. Ridge said that Fund V would have an up to 40 percent allocation to investments in North America, double that of the previous vintage which catered for up to 20 percent of the vehicle to be deployed in the region.

Ridge cautioned that there was no guarantee of this threshold being met, with “investments having to compete against each other, no matter where they are”.

With 33 percent of the €10 billion targeted fund deployed at the end of Q1 predominantly in Europe, the land of opportunity will have to prove itself.

Yielco finds ESG in new FoF partnership

Yielco Investments is launching a global infrastructure fund of funds this summer alongside Metzler Asset Management. The fund is targeting €300 million and will be an Article 8 fund under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation.

The new fund will be invested in a portfolio of around 10 diversified primary and secondary funds, providing access to 150 underlying infrastructure investments.

It is Yielco’s fourth in a series of infrastructure FoFs, although its first in partnership with Metzler. Metzler will support the fund with regards to ESG and placement, Uwe Fleischauer, founding partner and member of the board of Yielco, told The Pipeline.

In a statement, Fleischauer added: “In the private capital market, global infrastructure offers attractive return opportunities and inflation protection in harmony with ESG criteria.”

Yielco’s third eponymous flagship launched in May 2021 chasing €400 million. It was in an early phase with seven commitments by August last year, according to a statement. Maybe more ESG is the spice that will bring investors to the table for the new fund.

ESG ‘too burdensome’

Stafford Capital Partners, which runs fund of funds programmes as well as other private markets strategies, is seeing “an increasing number of funds being developed that are evading Article 9 classification of the SFDR”, Jesse de Klerk, a partner in the firm’s private equity business, told PEI Group’s recent Impact Investor Global Summit in London, affiliate title New Private Markets reported.

Fund managers find the EU-imposed obligations for use of the Article 9 classification “just too burdensome from a reporting standpoint”, de Klerk added.

Such sentiment appears to be present in the infrastructure market. Anthos Fund & Asset Management has also been seeing this, said Diana Wesselius, Anthos’s managing director for multi-asset investing, joining de Klerk on a panel.

“Last year, we invested in an infrastructure fund that was investing in renewable energy transition in Africa… They were not labelling themselves an impact fund as such, although they were very impactful with investments. But they found the SFDR Article 9 was very scary and burdensome.”

Wesselius’s team worked with the infrastructure fund manager to complete sustainability reporting in line with Article 9 requirements on a voluntary basis “because we believed they could do it, and they are doing it”, Wesselius added.

One small push from Anthos, one greater leap for ESG.

Grapevine

“Renewable energy adoption in the energy-consuming sectors is stalling, despite a strong appetite for renewables, due to a lack of strategic integrated planning, inconsistent policies and a lack of structural reforms”