Australia’s AMP Capital makes first infra debt investment in Taiwan

Australia’s AMP Capital has made its first infrastructure debt investment in Asia, with a US$145m (€134m) mezzanine debt facility to a new 376-megawatt offshore wind farm, Formosa II, in Taiwan.

The borrower is US-based Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners, which is acquiring Swancor Renewable Energy.

Swancor developed Taiwan’s first operational offshore wind asset, Formosa I, which began operations last year.

Formosa II will be one of Taiwan’s largest offshore wind farms when construction is completed, currently scheduled for 2021.

AMP Capital’s head of infrastructure debt in Asia, Simon La Greca, told IPE Real Assets that Formosa II had a 20-year fixed-price power purchase agreement with the state-owned Taiwan Power Company.

“We are investing from our global infrastructure debt fund,” he said.

AMP Capital raised a record US$6.2bn for its fourth infrastructure debt strategy in October 2019. More than US$2bn of the funds raised have already been invested in assets around the world.

“That fund doesn’t have individual limits per country, so, in theory, the available capital is available to be deployed across the globe where there are investment opportunities,” La Greca said.

The fund’s primary markets were Australia, Europe and North America, but it was also looking to fund infrastructure projects in developed and emerging Asia.

“We have been working extensively to find opportunities in Asia,” he told IPE Real Assets. “We want to capitalise on the expanding need for infrastructure.

“With rising standards of living, the populations in the region expect better standard of infrastructure, whether it is airports, roads or power.”

La Greca told IPE Real Assets it was a growing theme that government could not solely be responsible for funding such infrastructure, and would look to the private sector for alternative funding.

“We have well-established models of funding through what we have done in Australia, Europe and America,” he said.

Since 2001, AMP Capital’s Infrastructure debt team has invested more than US$7.4bn in 76 assets globally.

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