Investors have been anticipating rare opportunities to scoop up infrastructure assets as companies and governments, wrestling with declining economic growth and revenues, decide to sell assets to raise cash. Has money been deployed in the past two years, or is there a lot of cash still sitting on the sidelines? 

Despite “unprecedented growth” in Australia’s infrastructure construction market during the past 10 years — growth driven by a boom in natural resources and mining as well as economic stimulus spending and reconstruction following floods in 2010 and 2011 — the country still suffers from deficient infrastructure in many areas. 

The 2012 Editorial Advisory Board of Institutional Investing in Infrastructure (I3)met in Chicago Nov. 8–9, 2012, following the Institutional Investing in Infrastructure conference Nov. 5–8 to discuss the challenges that face participants in this market. Board members were assigned topics and gathered in groups to discuss and report their conclusions to the board. All discussions are facilitated by Geoffrey Dohrmann, president and CEO of Institutional Real Estate, Inc., and publisher of I3.The following is an excerpt of discussions regarding survey results from the 2012 board meeting. Dohrmann spoke with a number of Editorial Advisory Board members and discussed the topic of asset management.