AMP Capital seeks up to €1bn for debt fund

Australian specialist investment manager AMP Capital Investors is due to launch an unlisted infrastructure debt fund, InfrastructureInvestor.com can exclusively reveal.

AMP Capital: plugging the bank gap

The new vehicle will start fundraising soon and is targeting a final close of between €700 million and €1 billion. It will be similar in scope to debt funds being raised by Australia’s Hastings Funds Management and London-based start-up Hadrian’s Wall Capital, in that it will primarily aim to provide junior/subordinated debt for infrastructure projects across the globe.  It is not, however, planning to offer any kind of long-term, senior debt facilities, a source close to the fund said.

AMP Capital’s new debt fund aims to capitalise on the gap created by the capital constraints faced by banks, the traditional debt providers for infrastructure projects. The debt fund space is seeing increasing competition with both Hadrian’s Wall Capital and Hastings targeting funds with a final size of €1 billion, just like AMP’s new vehicle.

In related news, AMP Capital is also working on a new, unlisted infrastructure fund – the AMP Capital Global Infrastructure Securities Fund – that will seek to invest in publicly traded securities. The fund, which has been in the pipeline for some time, is set to be open for investments from the third quarter of this year.

AMP Capital Investors manages close to $97 billion of funds across the world through an in-house team of some 240 professionals.