Infrastructure fund manager DIF has expanded its network into Latin America with the appointment of Daniel Aninat to head a new office in Chile.

From the office in Santiago, DIF will target Latin America with an initial focus predominantly on Chile and Uruguay, the manager said.

Aninat joins the office as a managing director. He joins from Scotiabank, where he headed the Chilean corporate banking division. Before that, he was head of project and acquisition finance for Santander in Chile.

DIF said Luis Hinojosa, senior director in DIF’s Madrid office, will relocate to Santiago.

Hinojosa has been with DIF since 2015 and has a broad infrastructure experience, including in different Latin American countries.

Wim Blaasse, managing partner at DIF, said: “Latin America is a large and fast-growing infrastructure market, in which we see several interesting investment opportunities across all our target sectors.

“We are delighted with this next step for DIF and further expand our global office network to nine offices, enabling us to better source and manage projects locally, as well as continue to construct diversified portfolios.”

DIF currently manages €5.6bn of assets under management across seven closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. It has nine offices located in Schiphol, Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Paris, Santiago, Sydney and Toronto.