In the past three years, 77 private equity infrastructure investment funds have held a final closing, raising an aggregate total of $151.8 billion, according to IREI’s FundTracker database. These funds were sponsored by 64 different managers, with 13 managers closing more than one fund since Jan. 1, 2015.
As expected, the top infrastructure managers control an outsized share of the market. Funds sponsored by the five managers raising the most capital during this period accounted for 35 percent of all capital raised, despite being only 8 percent of the manager pool. The top 10 managers brought in 51 percent of the capital, while accounting for only 16 percent of the managers with closed funds.
All five of the top North American funds were focused on energy. Global funds favor a diversified strategy that allows them to invest in the appropriate infrastructure sector in each region, though they also lean heavily toward energy. Blackstone’s Energy Partners II is focused entirely on energy. If a global fund has the United States as part of its mandate, you can bet the mortgage that energy will be a focus. European funds, on the other hand, favored diversified strategies that included transportation, communications, utilities and other traditional infrastructure sectors. Energy does not play much of a role in this region.
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