Infrastructure

The Blackstone unit previously raised $3.75bn for its third programme focusing on the asset class.

Three infrastructure managers were snapped up during a week where Pantheon has raised the market’s biggest ever secondaries fund focusing on the asset class.

Blackstone Strategic Partners tops the list with a record-breaking fundraising for its ninth flagship fund, which amassed $22.2bn.

The secondaries market will boom in 2024 as liquidity concerns persist and LPs look to invest in new asset classes, a panel at PEI’s Women in Private Markets Summit has heard.

AXA Investment Managers Prime has already built a nine-person infrastructure secondaries team and is building out its PE secondaries capabilities, according to global head Pascal Christory.

The firm has moved minority stakes into a separate vehicle which raised €550m of equity as well as €200m for follow-on.

The asset class has performed well in what has been its first proper test, argues the advisory firm’s head of infrastructure Gordon Bajnai.

The firm is also seeing ‘exciting opportunities’ in the opportunistic side of the business including real estate secondaries and structured equity, according to chief executive Michael Arougheti.

Pantheon Global Infrastructure Fund IV launched in 2021 with a $3bn target.

The firm’s $1bn haul for its first dedicated commingled vehicle for infrastructure secondaries this week couldn’t come at a more opportune time.