First State Investments has raised an additional €553m at the final close of its second European infrastructure fund, taking the fund’s total capital to €2.61bn.
The manager’s European Diversified Infrastructure Fund II (EDIF II), which is now backed by 39 investors in total, received commitments from 11 existing investors and 2 new investors at the third and final fundraising stage, enabling it to exceed its original €2.5bn fundraising target.
In June last year, First State, the international arm of Colonial First State Global Asset Management, announced that it raised €2.1bn for the fund.
EDIF II initially raised €700m for its first series in March 2017 and planned to raise €900m for the second series but had to increase the target.
Launched in 2016, EDIF II is the successor to EDIF I and pursues the same investment strategy of constructing a portfolio of infrastructure assets primarily targeting energy, transportation and utility investments in Europe and is currently over 70% deployed.
Niall Mills, partner, infrastructure Investments at First State Investments, said: “We have seen strong demand from institutional investors, and pension funds in particular, seeking stable long-term returns and income.
“The EDIF team has been active for more than a decade now; we look forward to working with our various management teams to continue delivering sustainable long term value for our investors now and into the future.”
Marcus Ayre, partner, infrastructure investments at First State Investments, said It has been a busy year adding Swedegas, Utilitas and OLT to the EDIF II portfolio; ”we have also been delighted with the continued growth of Finerge in the Portuguese wind market and Parkia in the Spanish off-street car park market”.
“In terms of the next 12 months, our focus will include adding Vopak Terminals to our portfolio, completing the deployment of EDIF II as well as the continued growth of our European and wider global infrastructure business.””
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