Assenagon: Milestone reached, infrastructure debt funds exceed 1 billion Euro
Assenagon: Milestone reached, infrastructure debt funds exceed 1 billion Euro
Institutional investors trust in Assenagon's infrastructure debt funds. Assenagon announced today in Munich that in less than five years the six funds managed by the asset manager have exceeded a net assets threshold of 1 billion Euros. The portfolio management team headed by Michael Hünseler demonstrates that specific targets and objectives of clients, such as asset liability matching, clearly defined use of proceeds and risk diversification can be achieved with infrastructure debt investments structured as securities.
Since the launch of the first fund in 2014, Assenagon has already made over 160 investments across the six infrastructure debt funds in more than 60 different projects in OECD countries. These projects include, amongst others, several airports and harbours, various wind and solar power plants, a seawater desalination plant, several social housing projects and a number of transport routes and means of transportation. The portfolio managers usually select investments in the form of private placements with investment grade ratings. Investors mainly include pension schemes and insurance companies from Germany and other European countries. The funds are structured as German "Special AIF" or Luxembourg SIF-FCPs.
Since the beginning, Assenagon has been successfully cooperating with MetLife Investment Management (MIM) in this business field. Investors benefit both from MIM's standing in this particular capital market segment and from the investment management expertise and long-standing experience of Assenagon's staff. The portfolio managers independently check the credit worthiness of each transaction as well as the constant and continuous compliance with investment guidelines and optimise the portfolio composition according to countries, sectors, currencies and maturities. The full service portfolio management relieves investors from technical and contractual administration procedures. Upon request Assenagon also offers hedging of interest rate and currency risks.
"Infrastructure debt investments are usually characterised by ring-fenced collateral structures, long maturities and comparatively low default rates. Especially in the current low-interest environment this makes them an ideal alternative for institutional investors looking for regular, stable and attractive returns. Concurrently, due to their special features and comparatively low level of standardization, such investments require a high level of specialisation and experience," says Michael Hünseler, Head of Credit Portfolio Management.
"The commitment increases since the launch of the first infrastructure debt fund reflect the investors' high level of trust and confidence in Assenagon's profound expertise in the infrastructure debt segment. Institutional investors also value our worldwide access to sought-after and sometimes hard-to-find-investments. Over many years Assenagon's cooperation with its partners has proven successful in addressing our clients' interests and has demonstrated its effectiveness and capability," commented Hubert Dänner, Head of Client Coverage.