AXA Investment Managers - Real Assets, the real estate portfolio and asset manager in Europe has announced the launch of Infrastructure Finance SCS-SIF - European Infra Senior 1, its first co-mingled pan-European infrastructure debt fund, which raised an initial €730 million (US$773 million), from five institutions following an effective collaboration between AXA IM - Real Assets and AXA IM sales teams.

European Infra Senior 1 seeks to provide institutional investors with defensive and stable income by investing into a diversified portfolio of core infrastructure project financing across pan-European markets. The Fund will target predominantly senior secured debt investments in the infrastructure (transportation, telecom, social) and energy (including renewables) sectors with a preference for brownfield assets.

European Infra Senior 1 will source opportunities from both the primary and secondary markets. Its fee structure has been designed to reward the selection of assets which will perform over time rather than to incentivise origination volumes.  

AXA IM - Real Assets has capped the size of the Fund to €1.5 billion and will continue to monitor carefully the volume of capital raising to ensure a complete focus on delivering performance for its investors.

Isabelle Scemama, Head of Funds Group at AXA IM - Real Assets, commented: 

“The successful launch of European Infra Senior 1 with an initial €730 million of capital raised underlines the increasing appetite amongst institutional investors for access to a diversified portfolio of tier-one quality infrastructure loans, which are able to deliver longer-term stable income-driven returns in a low interest rate environment, whilst also being in line with our 360° approach to investing. The size of both this newly launched Fund and our wider debt platform enables us to access high quality, large and complex deals, providing a competitive advantage and better relative value for the benefit of our clients.”

Florence Dard, Head of Client Group France at AXA IM commented:

“Our European Infra Senior 1 fund targets institutional clients seeking regular income in a low interest rate environment, and access our co-invest platform. Opening our infrastructure debt platform to third party clients enabled us to reinforce our relationship with major institutional investors, whether insurance companies or pension institutions. They have been attracted by the proven track record of our investment team as well as the robustness of AXA IM - Real Assets’ debt platform.”