Private equity powerhouse KKR has racked up $6.4 billion for the final close of its latest Asia Pacific-focused infrastructure fund, becoming the largest of its kind in the region.
Following the footsteps of its $3.9-billion precursor fund in the same family, KKR Asia Pacific Infrastructure Investors II will invest across renewables, power and utilities, water and wastewater, digital infrastructure and transportation, among others, according to a company statement on Thursday.
“The success of the fundraise is a testament to the confidence that global investors have in our ability to deliver strong risk-adjusted returns and differentiated value-add through our established multi-asset platform, local presence in key markets, and strong ability to collaborate across multiple strategies and the region,” David Luboff, Co-Head of Asia Pacific and Head of Asia Pacific Infrastructure at KKR, said in the statement.
The fund received a commitment from new and existing limited partners across the world, including public and corporate pensions, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowment funds, and asset managers.
KKR is one of the world’s most active alternative asset managers in infrastructure with global assets under management towering $56 billion. The group and its stablemates Brookfield and Blackstone have accepted large swathes of capital for vehicles dedicated to what Wall Street dubbed as “a defensive asset class”, amid roaring inflation where more allocators have come to appreciate its ability to produce long-term stable returns with lower volatility.
New York-based KKR, which has already spent over half of the new pan-Asia fund and engaged in about 10 investments, sees the macroeconomic backdrop in Asia presenting an opportune time for value-added private infrastructure investments, according to its Mumbai-based partner for infrastructure practice Hardik Shah.
“As Asia accounts for more than 60% of global growth, driven by rising domestic consumption and productivity, rapid urbanisation, and an enormous emerging middle class, the need for new infrastructure and sustainable energy sources will continue to accelerate,” said Shah.
Since the firm launched its APAC-dedicated mandate for the asset class in 2019, KKR has made about 20 investments and is managing approximately $13 billion in infrastructure assets in the region with the expertise of around 25 professionals across its key markets.
Some of its recent transactions include a $400-million investment in Malaysia’s subsea cable provider OMS Group; the S$1.1-billion purchase of a 20% stake in Singtel’s data centre unit; and a combined $650-million deployment in India’s Serentica Renewables.
While KKR sees its infrastructure platform, which started in 2008, as a maturing business with total distributable revenues of $686 million, the group’s Asia infrastructure business is among its real asset products that are still in the buildout phase, according to a presentation in December.
Source: KKR’s presentation at Goldman Sachs’ 2023 US Financial Services conference in December, data as of Q3 2023
“We have a lot of businesses that we’re still building and, in our business, it takes 10-15 years to get scaled. So, I think we have a lot of businesses that are getting close to that inflection part of the curve,” said KKR’s co-CEO Scott Nuttall at the Goldman Sachs 2023 US Financial Services Conference in December.
Source: KKR’s presentation at Goldman Sachs’ 2023 U.S. Financial Services conference in December
Along with its infrastructure strategy, the private equity giant expects to activate fundraising activities across different Asia-focused strategies, including private equity, core-plus real estate, opportunistic real estate, and private credit among 30 strategies in the next 12-18 months, Nuttall said at the same event.
The first month of 2024 saw a wave of heady merger deals in the infrastructure industry, with BlackRock swallowing GIP and General Atlantic integrating Actis into the firm. Germany’s Commerzbank also purchased a 74.9% stake in renewable energy-focused asset manager Aquila Capital in a move to tap investments in clean energy, green infrastructure, and sustainable real estate.
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