Aquila Infrastructure Strategy

Aquila Capital – Infrastructure

Investments in infrastructure cover a wide range of different sub-asset classes and development stages. Thereby, investments can be made directly or indirectly in different sections of the capital structure of projects or companies.

In general, infrastructure assets and companies provide essential services to support economic growth and productivity of economies. A distinction can be made between regulated, availability-based and demand- or GDP-based compensation schemes.

The strategy of the Aquila Capital Infrastructure Fund is to build a diversified portfolio with a focus on mainly operational, cash-flow producing infrastructure assets or projects. The portfolio is multi-dimensionally diversified through a combination of fund investments (primary/secondary), as well as direct and co-investments:

• Significant market entry barriers or partial monopoly positions of the target assets
• Long-term investments with low ongoing, operational costs
• Long-term agreed, stable cash flows, generally with lower volatility than other asset classes
• Inflation-linked contracts and price mechanisms
• Low correlation to many other asset classes

The characteristics listed provide the potential for a sustainable and predictable performance of a portfolio, an attractive risk-adjusted return and a hedge against inflation. Hereby, the Aquila Capital Infrastructure funds aims for regular dividends of 4-5 % p.a. as well as a participation in the long-term appreciation of the underlying investments (target net IRR >7 % p.a. on a 10-year horizon).

In contrast to other, mostly closed-ended funds, Aquila Capital Infrastructure Fund as an open-end fund offers the possibility to continuously adjust the exposure to the infrastructure asset class by increasing the investment or redeeming units during the holding period in such a way that the planned infrastructure quota in the investor's portfolio can be precisely controlled.

The Aquila Capital Infrastructure Fund pursues an investment strategy aligned with the following criteria:

• Social infrastructure such as schools, universities or hospitals
• Renewable energies (wind energy, solar energy and hydropower)
• Small regional infrastructure projects
• Cooperative investment approaches within the framework of public-private partnerships
• Asset managers with a strong ESG focus and high UNPRI and/or GRESB ratings
• No investments in the exploitation of raw materials

In addition to the purely product and strategy-related advantages, the experienced fund management is convinced that the following attributes will generate added value for investors:

• Many years of experience, market access and track record in asset managers’ selection and direct investments
• Recognised market leader in renewable energy investments
• Investment and asset management teams with expertise and know-how