Ardian, the independent private investment company, has signed a Sale and Purchase Agreement in July 2017 with UniCredit for the acquisition of a approx. €300 million (US$354 million) portfolio of limited partnership interests in European infrastructure private equity funds.

Closing of the transaction is expected in 3Q17 subject to the approval and rules of the fund manager. This deal represents one of the largest secondary infrastructure transactions in 2017 and confirms Ardian’s leadership in secondary infrastructure Funds of Funds.

UniCredit is a simple successful Pan European Commercial Bank, with a fully plugged in CIB, delivering a unique Western, Central and Eastern European network to its extensive client franchise: 25 million clients. UniCredit offers local expertise as well as an international one reaching and supporting its clients globally, providing them with unparalleled access to leading banks in its 14 core markets as well as in other 18 countries worldwide.

This transaction continues Ardian’s secondary funds strategy to offer liquidity to large institutions looking to rebalance their portfolios and monetize their private equity investments. In 2016, the Ardian Fund of Funds team totaled US$4.8 billion of secondary, infrastructure secondary and early secondary transactions worldwide.

Mark Benedetti, Managing Director and Co-Head of Ardian US, said:

“This is the culmination of a highly collaborative relationship with UniCredit. This acquisition highlights our unique ability to complete significant and complex transactions which offer secondary liquidity to large institutions such as Unicredit. Our scale and knowledge of the assets meant we were perfectly placed to support its strategy.”

“Our team, spread out across the globe, is able to access a vast amount of information via a database of 1,400 funds and 10,000 underlying companies, which gives us excellent perspective on pricing and quality, allowing us to be opportunistic on behalf of our investors.”