African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM), Africa’s largest dedicated sustainable infrastructure equity manager, has announced the final close of its fourth pan-African infrastructure fund, African Infrastructure Investment Fund 4 (AIIF4).
The fund achieved its hard cap with $748 million in commitments and an additional $206 million in co-investments, totaling $954 million. This fundraising milestone surpasses the initial target by 50%, showcasing significant investor confidence and interest in Africa’s burgeoning infrastructure sector.
A Landmark Achievement in a Challenging Environment
The AIIF4’s successful fundraising comes amid a challenging global economic environment, underscoring the robust demand for infrastructure investments in Africa. Paul Frankish, AIIM’s Head of Strategic Initiatives, highlighted the strong support from the existing investor base and the influx of new investors.
“Given the challenging global fundraising environment, we are delighted to have outperformed the targeted fund size. We received strong support from our existing investor base with a high level of re-ups from the supporters of our previous mandates which served to anchor the fundraising,” Frankish stated.
Diverse and Strategic Investor Base
Commitments were secured from 29 investors, with approximately 25% from institutional investors in Africa, 42% from EU countries and the UK, 14% from Canada and the USA, and 17% from the Middle East and Asia. The investors include pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, and family offices, with 50% of commitments coming from Development Finance Institution (DFI) investors.
Focusing on Key Sectors
AIIF4 continues AIIM’s strategy of investing in sustainable infrastructure across Africa, focusing on three key sectors: Digital Infrastructure, Energy Transition, and Mobility and Logistics. These sectors are vital for addressing the continent’s infrastructure deficits and are expected to drive long-term growth. The fund has already committed over 60% of its capital across seven platforms, providing investors with early visibility of the strategy and performance.
Commitment to Sustainability and Gender Diversity
Through its AIIF4 mandate, AIIM is doubling down on its commitment to tackling climate change by setting decarbonization and energy efficiency goals and maximizing emissions avoidance through renewable energy deployment. The fund is also a 2X Challenge Fund, which promotes gender diversity across investment teams and portfolio management teams. The 2X Challenge criteria serve as the global industry standard for structuring investments that provide women with leadership opportunities, quality employment, and access to finance.
Strategic Focus on High-Growth Markets
Olusola Lawson, AIIM’s Managing Director and Co-CEO, emphasized the strategic focus on long-term growth driven by structural deficits and secular tailwinds rather than volatile macroeconomic cycles. “In developing the strategy we have focused on key themes which provide investors with long-term growth driven by structural deficits and secular tailwinds rather than volatile macro-economic cycles.
This includes digital infrastructure, to capitalize on the surge in data consumption across the continent; energy transition, to address the chronic shortage of affordable power and the associated productivity losses for Africa’s corporates; and transport, ports and logistics, to meet the demands for moving goods and people through the world’s most rapidly urbanizing cities. All investments by the Fund are specifically tracked against climate, gender and governance objectives.”
by Tony O. Lawson
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The post AIIM Fund Secures $954 Million for Sustainable Infrastructure Across Africa appeared first on SHOPPE BLACK.
