AllianzGI’s maiden global infra fund to invest in secondaries

The fund, which will be managed by Allianz Capital Partners, will invest in infra funds directly, via secondaries as well as in co-investments.

Allianz Global Investors, one of the world’s largest private equity investors, has become the latest entrant to the infrastructure secondaries market.

The firm’s alternatives asset manager Allianz Capital Partners has raised more than €600 million for Allianz Global Diversified Infrastructure Equity Fund – its first global infrastructure equity fund – two-thirds of the way towards reaching its €900 million target.

The fund launched this year.

Allianz Capital also raised €860 million for its Allianz European Infrastructure Fund, the firm’s first attempt to raise and manage third-party capital, this year.

Unlike AEIF which invests primarily in core assets in the eurozone, the Global Diversified fund will invest in infrastructure funds, acquire secondaries stakes in such vehicles, as well as pursue co-investments “alongside our fund manager partners”, a spokeswoman for the Munich-based firm told Infrastructure Investor.

Asked why Allianz chose to pursue a different strategy than that of AEIF, the spokeswoman said: “The AGDIEF mirrors the second pillar of the Allianz investment strategy in infrastructure. One is direct, mirrored by AEIF; the other one is indirect, mirrored by AGDIEF.

“It therefore enables the ‘co-investing with Allianz’ approach as Allianz will in both funds contribute at least half of the capital invested in each investment,” she explained.

According to a statement, through AGDIEF Allianz will seek to build a diversified portfolio of core, core-plus and value-add infrastructure assets across the energy, transportation, communications, environmental and social infrastructure sectors.

It will focus on OECD countries and other developed markets, and emerging markets are also “explicitly part of the investment mandate”, the spokeswoman said.

All the investors that have committed to the fund to-date are from Europe, the spokeswoman said, and final close is expected to take place “in substantially less than 12 months”.

The spokeswoman declined to comment on the fund’s hard-cap.

Allianz Capital Partners ranked 15th in sister title Private Equity International‘s Global Investor 100 list of the biggest investors in private equity. It had almost $18 billion invested in the asset class as of end-December.