Australian manager Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) has reached its hard cap of A$1bn (€685m) in what is described as “an extension” of its first global infrastructure fund.

Fresh capital came from two new investors, but the majority of commitments were from existing QIC Global Infrastructure Fund (QGIF) investors.

The first fundraise for QGIF reached its hard cap of A$2.4bn in March 2017 and was fully committed across 10 assets in December 2019.

“This extension will allow us to continue to further enhance the value of QGIF’s portfolio by growing a number of existing platform investments and leveraging our active management approach,” said Ross Israel, head of global infrastructure at QIC.

The QGIF extension capital will primarily target bolt-on opportunities within existing assets. There are also some new thematically-linked investments to deliver further growth, diversification and resilience to the portfolio.

The strategy is well-progressed, with close to half of the extension capital already invested.

Israel said the extension investments formed part of QIC’s global focus on sustainable infrastructure during 2021.

This saw an aggregate of around A$4bn of investment made across three assets – Tilt Renewables by PowAR (Powering Australian Renewables); Generate Capital, the largest pure-play district energy platform in the US; and CenTrio (formerly Enwave Energy US).

Israel said: “Over A$1.9bn of co-investment has been committed alongside QGIF, allowing investors to tailor their infrastructure exposure across geography, lifecycle and sector.”

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