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The
new fund is the first infrastructure debt fund that Ares has
raised following its acquisition of the infrastructure debt
business of Sydney, Australia-based investment firm AMP Capital
in February last year. AMP had previously raised four such
funds.
The new fund is called Ares Infrastructure Debt Fund V and will
acquire subordinated loans or bonds of infrastructure assets,
particularly in the digital, transportation and renewable energy
sectors across North America, Europe and Asia, Patrick Trears,
Ares' global head of infrastructure debt, told Reuters.
"Investors look at infrastructure as a flight to quality when
they're looking at making investments because of the consistent,
steady nature of the cash and returns and this is a low
volatility asset as well where you would not expect to be seeing
big swings," Trears said.
Infrastructure funds raised $95.4 billion in the first nine
months of last year, which is greater than the amount raised
over the same period in each of the last 10 years with the
exception of 2021, according to data provider Pitchbook.
The new Ares fund raised more than each of AMP's prior four
funds, which cumulatively collected more than $7.5 billion from
investors.
The debt fund has already invested about $2 billion of its
capital. It provided $1 billion in so-called
sustainability-linked debt facilities to Virginia-based data
center provider EdgeConneX to refinance its existing debt,
expand its operations and help the company hit its environmental
and social governance targets.
Los Angeles-based Ares was founded in 1997 and has more than
$340 billion in assets under management across credit, private
equity, real estate, infrastructure, and secondary fund
investments.
(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Christian
Schmollinger)
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