The joint venture formed by Old Mutual Investment a South African investment, savings, insurance and banking group and Macquarie a global investment banking and diversified financial services group, has plans to launch a new Africa infrastructure fund.

In 2000 Macquarie Africa and Old Mutual Investment Group established the African Infrastructure Investment Managers (Pty) Ltd (AIIM) joint venture.

AIIM was originally established to take over management of the then existing South Africa Infrastructure Fund (SAIF), a R806 million fund established in 1996. Following the full commitment of SAIF and successful management of this fund, AIIM established AIIF in 2004, which at R1,320 million was the largest single private equity capital raising of that year in South Africa.

AIIF2, a successor fund to AIIF, reached first close in early 2010. Now, AIIF2 is almost fully invested and this is the reason behind the launch of the new fund.

The AIIM funds primarily target equity investments in such assets as roads, airports, power, telecommunications, rail, port, water and social infrastructure across Africa.

We have recently reported that New York State Common Retirement Fund announced plans to invest as much as 3% of the fund's assets in Africa in the next five years. he fund currently has about US$180 billion in assets, therefore the total planned investment in Africa would be approximately US$5.4 billion. The fund plans to invest in private-equity firms, venture capital, real estate and new infrastructure projects.

According to the International Monetary Fund the expansion of the growing economies in the Sub-Saharan Africa is forecasted at 4.5 % this year and 5.1% in 2016. These countries has plans to build several types of infrastructures including roads, power plant and water system to cover it demands.