DIF  has reached its final closing for DIF Infrastructure III at EUR 800 million, within a year after its first close.

After its first close in May 2012, DIF Infrastructure III had a swift fund raise with mainly European institutional investors. The second close was at €463 million. The hard cap of EUR 750 million was raised after the third close to EUR 800 million in order to facilitate the strong demand from existing and new investors.

DIF Infrastructure III has a similar investment strategy to DIF Infrastructure III and will target investments in projects with long term stable cash flows, principally Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and renewable energy projects. As with its previous funds DIF Infrastructure III will focus on both primary and secondary investment opportunities, a strategy which enables DIF to generate an attractive immediate yield for its investors, while also achieving capital growth.

Wim Blaasse, Managing Partner of DIF comments: "We have seen a strong commitment by existing European investors with a re-up rate of 70%, while most of the new money is also raised with European institutions. They are all looking for relatively low risk stable yielding assets and solid returns managed by an experienced manager. We are pleased with the investors' interest in DIF's activities in the current challenging fundraising environment, in which we ultimately had to turn down some investor demand."

DIF is currently preferred bidder for a number of transactions in various countries in both the PPP and renewable energy space. DIF Infrastructure III closed its first 4 transactions, being three PPP projects and one solar PV portfolio. This includes the landmark Dutch PPP road project A1/A6, a 22.6MW solar PV portfolio in France, the operational Irish toll road M4 and a PPP accommodation project in France.

Source: DIF