Mariner Investment Group raises $450m for infra debt, acquires Unicredit's project finance loans

Subscribe to our newsletter and get the latest news and business opportunities in your inbox
Mariner Investment Group raises $450m for infra debt, acquires Unicredit's project finance loans

Mariner Investment Group, a US-based global alternative asset manager, announced on Monday that it has launched Mariner Infrastructure Investment Management (MIIM), a unit to invest in infrastructure debt.

MIIM serves as portfolio manager for two investment vehicles: the International Infrastructure Finance Company Fund, LP, a $350 million comingled fund (IIFC), and Mariner Breakwater, LP, a $100 million fund-of-one.

MIIM aims to take leveraged exposure to loans, bonds, and other debt instruments associated with global infrastructure, energy, and transportation assets.

Mariner established MIIM in an effort to capitalize on the opportunity set created by two significant investment themes: (1) tightened Basel III standards which have caused a dramatic shortfall in regulatory capital at banks, likely to persist over the next several years, and (2) an urgent need for additional infrastructure finance in markets around the globe.

The MIIM team's primary investment strategy will provide credit protection against certain losses in specific infrastructure loan portfolios. Mariner selects assets for these investments based on strict credit underwriting criteria, coordinated by a highly experienced in-house team with significant infrastructure investment expertise.

Bracebridge Young, Mariner's Chief Executive Officer, said:

"Our new infrastructure investment mandates provide global project finance banks with innovative, customized, and attractive solutions for the management of risk weighted assets in their infrastructure, power, and transport loan books, thereby addressing a critical and unmet need within the financial sector. We're hopeful that the uptake will be strong; on the back of IIFC's initial close, we have already completed our first investment with a major European project finance bank."

In fact, UniCredit announced yesterday it had sold some of the risk on a €910 million ($1.2 billion) portfolio of Italian project finance loans  to two funds managed by Mariner Investment Group.

Andrew Hohns, Managing Director at Mariner Investment Group and leader of MIIM, said:
"We would be happy to look at taking more exposure in Italy. We have discussions going on with a range of institutions, some of them are in Italy, and we hope these will evolve in a good way."

Andrew Hohns oversees a group of six dedicated investment professionals with more than 90 years of combined experience in infrastructure finance.

Investors to the initial products of MIIM include a diverse group of institutional investors, including public and private pension funds, a large charitable trust, and affiliates of Mariner for their own accounts. Over a half dozen institutional investors participated in the initial capitalization of the vehicles, the majority of which are first time investors with Mariner.

List of country news

Country news

  • January 28, 2014

    Foresight adds six to its Infrastructure investment team

    Foresight Group, the independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, has expanded its Infrastructure team by six, taking its international team to 20 investment professionals, further strengthening its position as one of the largest dedicated teams in the solar sector. Read more
  • January 29, 2014

    ForVEI acquires 6.9MW Tirreno Solar Plant from Tirreno Power

    Solar infrastructure investment vehicle ForVEI has completed the acquisition of the 6.9 MW Tirreno Solar power plant in the Municipality of Sessa Aurunca, Campania, Italy from Tirreno Power SpA, which is co-owned by GDF Suez and Energia Italia. Read more
  • February 07, 2014

    Atlantia says no intention to sell Rome airport stake

    Italy's Atlantia, which controls airport operator Aeroporti di Roma S.p.A (AdR), said on Tuesday it has not intention to sell a minority stake in the group that runs Rome's airports to foreign institutional investors. Read more
  • March 11, 2014

    Corporacion America launches bid for Italian airports

    Argentina's Corporación America has announced that it has launched takeover bids for the companies that operate Italy's Pisa and Florence airports. Read more
  • April 16, 2014

    Partners Group acquires thirteen solar power plants in Italy

    Partners Group has bought 13 operational solar-power plants in Italy and plans to acquire more. Read more

Share this news

Join us

In order to get full access to News section, you must have a full subscription. You can check all the benefits of becoming a member and purchase a subscription on our membership page.