GLOBAL - Partners Group has raised €500m from corporate and public pension funds, insurance companies, financial institutions, endowments and high net worth individuals for its largest ever infrastructure investment programme.

The private markets specialist has capped capital raising following strong investor demand for its Partners Group Global Infrastructure 2009.

The investment programme has already made a number of acquisitions and has built up a portfolio of 17 assets.

Recent examples include Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, an Australian coal export terminal currently being expanded to a capacity of 53m tonnes per annum; Rovigo, a 71 mega-watt solar photovoltaic power plant in Italy; and a number of secondary investments purchased at discounts to net asset value.

Partners Group said the successful build-up of the portfolio and positive performance at the end of 2010 had enabled the programme to mitigate the J-curve effect (where there is a delay to generating a return on capital), typically associated with private equity-style investments.

Despite being in an early stage of its investment phase, Partners Group Global Infrastructure 2009 is already well diversified across sectors, financing stages and transaction types.

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2010, Partners Group Global Infrastructure 2009 had exposure to more than a dozen countries, including the UK, Australia, Italy, India, the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Brazil.

Michael Barben, partner and head of private infrastructure at Partners Group, said: "In an environment of increased economic and financial uncertainty, investors are looking for assets with stable cash flows, inflation protection and significant cash yield, all quintessential characteristics of the infrastructure asset class."

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