Hamburg, 31 July 2023 - Aquila Capital announces that the Aquila Capital Infrastructure Fund (ACIF) exceeded EUR 500 million in capital commitments in the second quarter of 2023. The fund was thus able to record further capital inflows in a challenging fundraising environment and further growth is expected going forward.
Contributing to the continued interest of investors is the fact that infrastructure in 2022 proved that the asset class can generate value in times of high inflation and other macroeconomic and political disruptions. Despite rising inflation, increasing interest rates and continued macroeconomic uncertainty, infrastructure investments recorded a clear increase in value last year, with the ACIF achieving an even stronger growth than the infrastructure index EDHEC Infra 300. In contrast, listed asset classes suffered substantial declines – both global bonds and global equities recorded a negative performance in a significant double-digit percentage range. Infrastructure thus evidenced its low correlation to macroeconomic parameters and listed asset classes under real conditions in a challenging environment.
Christian Brezina, Head of Diversified Infrastructure & Multi Asset Investments at Aquila Capital, comments: “In addition to adequate returns, protection against macroeconomic risks plays an important role for infrastructure investments. Firstly, many infrastructure assets have a low correlation with the economic cycle, which effectively protects investors from economic downturns. Secondly, debt financings at asset level can be hedged against rising interest rates, which means security in view of central banks’ currently more restrictive monetary policies. And thirdly, investments in renewable energy infrastructure, for example, can provide protection against inflation, as energy price rises exceed the overall economic inflation rate both in the long term and at present. For our fund, this means: more than 90% of the assets in our portfolio are either unaffected by rising inflation or even benefit from it.”
Looking forward, further private capital is likely to flow into the infrastructure sector. Since government spending will not be sufficient to cover the backlog demand for infrastructure investments, an increasing involvement of private investors will be required. This can only be achieved through delivering decent and at the same time predictable returns. In addition, megatrends such as the exponential growth of global data volumes, the expansion of renewable energies or the increasing demand for charging infrastructure in the context of e-mobility are providing impetus in selected infrastructure market areas.
ACIF delivered a positive performance each year since its launch in 2017
ACIF pursues a defensive strategy and focuses on core and core+ infrastructure investments. It is broadly diversified across all relevant sectors such as transportation, power generation, utilities, telecommunications and social infrastructure. As of 30 June 2023, about 30% of the portfolio was made up of direct or co-investments, mainly in renewable energy projects. Approximately 70% consisted of investments in broadly diversified target funds. The strategy benefits from stable and recurring revenues and predominantly regulated assets or assets with long-term contracted cash flows from brownfield assets in Europe and other OECD countries.
Jan Peters, investment manager responsible for the fund at Aquila Capital, says: “A special feature of ACIF is that we can invest committed capital into our direct project pipeline quickly, thus enabling investors to actively participate in the strategy already shortly after their decision to invest. The chosen structure of an open-ended Luxembourg SICAV-RAIF reflects the structure of the constantly developing market for infrastructure investments and offers investors advantages over traditional closed-ended funds. As an open-ended fund, ACIF does not have a fixed term and thus offers investors a high degree of flexibility, as they can continuously adjust their capital commitments and thus optimise their allocation to infrastructure through the portfolio.”
Press contact Aquila Group:
Eliza De Waard
Group Head Corporate Communications
Aquila Group
Phone: +49 40 87 5050-101
Email: eliza.dewaard@aquila-capital.com
Caroline Schröder
FGS Global (Europe)
Phone: +49 69 921 874 621
Email: caroline.schroeder@fgsglobal.com