Cezary Podkul
In 2009, Americans have received warning after warning that their governments face alternatively a ‘decade of debt’ or a ‘lost decade’ due to massive, painful and protracted budget deficits that are here to stay. Opportunities are abound for infrastructure investors - but so are the pitfalls.
Pending a review of its policies by Governor-elect Chris Christie, the state will not make any new commitments to its alternative investment programme.
Originally targeting $1bn, the founders of Alterna Capital Partners decided to close the fund and begin investing because they saw ‘the best environment we’ve seen in our entire career’ for investing in long-lived assets such as rail, ships and power plants.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board president David Denison credited ‘the continued strength in the equity markets’ for the increase. Real estate posted essentially flat returns in the three months to the end of September
But despite A$414m in gains from listed fund buyouts and internalisations, the Australian investment bank still posted A$414m in net write-downs due to other adjustments. In May, Macquarie had disclosed A$417m in write-downs across its managed funds.
The head of one of Canada’s largest pensions is targeting large-scale assets – with a little help from selected friends.
Michael Nobrega also said at a speech in New York that the 2-and-20 compensation model no longer works and active infrastructure investing is the wave of the future. He urged pensions to make allocations to the asset class and to make them large enough to invest in big-ticket assets.
The $200bn pension’s senior portfolio manager for infrastructure has hired two additional portfolio managers under him, Christine Yokan and Todd Lapenna.
Pension Consulting Alliance managing director Judy Chambers said the interest shown by managers was ‘in line’ with the consulting firm’s expectations. The next steps in the process are up to the pensions who will be provided the information requested by the PCA.
US pensions are looking to educate themselves about infrastructure asset managers – the best sign yet that they may yet follow Australian superannuation funds in fueling the growth of the asset class in a big way.