Credit Agricole has signed an alliance with Babson Capital to co-invest in global infrastructure lending.

According to public sources, the French bank has seeded around US$500 million of infrastructure loan assets, predominantly in Europe and the US, into the alliance with Babson.

Babson Capital is a US based investment management firm that manages $182 billion. The firms is a subsidiary of US insurance firm, Mass Mutual Life Insurance.

In June 2013, CNP Assurances and Natixis signed a memorandum of understanding in order to co-invest through a partnership in infrastructure debt targeting an amount of up to €2 billion over a 3-year period.

Aviva Investors also announced at the end of July 2013 that it has launched a European secondary infrastructure debt vehicle.

The long-dated nature of the debt is attractive to institutional investors, such as pension funds and life insurers due to their liability profiles.

The position of the infrastructure debt in the capital structure and the natural hedge against inflation due to floating-rates are also features that attract investors to infrastructure debt.