Infrastructure equity – Getting in on the ground floor

Infrastructure equity has taken pension funds in Canada and Australia by storm in the last 18 months, but it is less well known outside those markets. However, Macquarie’s decision to launch a global infrastructure index in conjunction with FTSE this summer, gave notice that it is hoping to change all that. The index launch followed the successful closure of Macquarie’s oversubscribed European infrastructure fund, which attracted some j1.5 billion in investor commitments. European institutional investors such as Belgian pension funds KBC and Suez-Tractebel, Germany’s HSH Nordbank, ABP of the Netherlands and the British Airways Pension Fund all put money on the table.