Patrizia and Mitsui’s sustainable APAC infrastructure strategy makes debut investment

Patrizia and Mitsui & Co are investing A$70m (€42m) in Australian solar and battery energy storage projects on behalf of their newly created APAC Sustainable Infrastructure Fund (A-SIF).

The investment, which marks A-SIF’s debut transaction, involves the fund taking an equity stake in renewables specialist YES Group and providing funding for the development of assets across Australia.

YES Group’s portfolio has the potential to deliver total renewable generation capacity of over 150MW once fully developed.

Saji Anantakrishnan, head of infrastructure for Australia and Asia at Patrizia, said: “As a thoughtful and strategic investor for our clients, this first deal for A-SIF demonstrates our strong conviction to energy transition and the attractive long-term returns renewables can generate for our institutional investors.

”Our vision in APAC for both Patrizia’s real assets platform and our flagship mid-market fund is to collaborate with like-minded investors and regional partners to build a portfolio of infrastructure assets that deliver positive sustainable outcomes.”

Patrizia and YES Group have worked together since September 2020, delivering over 60MW of approved projects with a further pipeline of over 70MW identified, in addition to the target of over 150MW through A-SIF.

In January this year, real assets manager Patrizia partnered with investment firm Mitsui to co-invest in sustainable infrastructure in APAC. The two firms formed Patrizia MBK Fund Management venture to manage the newly launched strategy which is expected to hold up to US$1bn (€951m) in managed assets.

The strategy will invest in the developed APAC markets of Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, New Zealand and Taiwan, as well as in select developing Asian markets as it targets the energy, digital, social and mobility sectors.

A-SIF is the second fund from the Patrizia-Mitsui collaboration, following the launch of the Emerging Market Infrastructure Fund (EMIF) in 2008, which also had a focus on APAC.

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