First Sentier Investors, which seeks to raise €3.5bn for its third European infrastructure fund, has received €3.4bn in capital commitments at the fund’s initial fundraising round.
The first stage of the fundraising for the European Diversified Infrastructure Fund III (EDIF III) raised over €2.2bn in fund commitments and a further €1.2bn of potential co-investment commitments received from 36 leading global institutional investors, the manager said.
The manager said EDIF III aims to reach its target size of €3.5bn over a limited number of fundraising series.
First Sentier said investors who are already invested in EDIF III’s predecessor funds represent 60% of commitments to EDIF III. The EDIF II reached its hard cap of €2.6bn in July last year and the EDIF I fund raised €2bn in 2015.
Like the previous funds, the latest fund will target mid-market, sustainable, mature, economic infrastructure assets in the European energy, transportation and utility sectors.
EDIF III recently bought SSE’s 50% stake in UK energy-from-waste ventures Multifuel Energy and Multifuel Energy 2 as its first investment.
Marcus Ayre, head of European infrastructure investments at First Sentier Investors said: “We are delighted to have secured our largest ever series fundraising and are grateful for the support and trust shown to us by so many of our existing investors and welcome our new investors to the EDIF family.
“EDIF III is off to a great start with the Multifuel Energy investment and we are actively pursuing an attractive pipeline of opportunities, remaining focussed at all times on delivering on our promise to our investors by creating value through building, and pro-actively managing, a high-quality portfolio of European infrastructure businesses.”
Niall Mills, head of global infrastructure investments at First Sentier Investors said: “This has been an extraordinary year which has demonstrated that our philosophy of ESG-led proactive asset management is the right one to protect and deliver long-term sustainable value for our investors.
“Globally, our business has gone from strength to strength with our European and global portfolios delivering strong performance over 2020 and continuing to grow via several transactions across Europe as well as the US, Australia and New Zealand.”
A previous version of this story referred to First Sentier Investors as First State Investments. Formerly First State Investments/Colonial First State Global Asset Management, the firm was acquired from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in August 2019 by Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation.
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