African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) has raised nearly a billion dollars for its latest strategy, exceeding its target by half and drawing support from both existing and new global investors.
AIIM said its fourth pan-African infrastructure fund African Infrastructure Investment Fund 4 (AIIF4) closed at its $748m (€685m) hard cap, attracting investors from Africa, Europe, Canada, the US, the Middle East, and Asia. Additionally, $206m in co-investments was secured to invest alongside AIIF4.
The fund manager said that more than half of AIIF’s capital was committed by new investors, many of whom had entered the African infrastructure sector for the first time.
With commitments from 29 investors, the AIIF secured 25% of its capital from Africa, 42% from Europe and the UK, 14% from North America and 17% from the Middle East and Asia. The investor base comprises pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers and family offices, with development finance institutions representing 50% of the total commitments, AIIM added.
AIIF4 achieved its initial fundraising close in June 2022. Since then, it has invested in seven platforms, representing over 60% of the fund’s total commitments.
In August last year, IPE Real Assets reported that AIIF4 was investing $90m in data centres via a newly created partnership with N+ONE DATACENTERS.
Paul Frankish, AIIM’s head of strategic initiatives, said: “Given the challenging global fundraising environment, we are delighted to have outperformed the targeted fund size. We received strong support from our existing investor base with a high level of re-ups from the supporters of our previous mandates which served to anchor the fundraising.
“We have also seen many new investors seeking to diversify their investment allocations into new markets which they consider provide strong long-term growth potential, as well as seeking investments with well-defined sustainability and impact strategies.
“These investors have all sought to enter Africa, as a new market with high growth and impact potential, alongside AIIM due to our long track record in the region and strong on-the-ground local presence.”
Olusola Lawson, AIIM’s managing director and co-CEO said: “In developing the strategy we have focused on key themes which provide investors with long-term growth driven by structural deficits and secular tailwinds, rather than volatile macro-economic cycles.
“This includes digital infrastructure, to capitalise on the surge in data consumption across the continent; energy transition, to address the chronic shortage of affordable power and the associated productivity losses for Africa’s corporates; and transport, ports and logistics, to meet the demands for moving goods and people through the world’s most rapidly urbanising cities.”
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