AGF achieves first close of infrastructure fund with $372 million of equity commitments

Money manager AGF Management Ltd. has achieved the first close on its infrastructure fund, a task it launched about 1 . 5 years back as a way of diversifying an investment opportunities open to its institutional and retail clients.

After the markets closed on Wednesday AGF and InstarAGF Asset Management Inc., the entity which will manage the investments, announced they had received $372 million in “firm” equity commitments from a group of institutional and high net worth investors based in North America and Europe.

At $372 million, the amount raised is about half of exactly what the fund, the InstarAGF Essential Infrastructure Fund, had hoped to boost. In a release, AGF added there’s the potential for “cornerstone investors,” to take a position another $50 million prior to the closing from the fund. The goal is to raise $750 million after the entire year. The fund started seeking investors last April.

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Blake Goldring, AGF’s chief executive, expressed his appreciation for which the fund has raised. “Our strategy has been to diversify and build [a platform of] alternatives and become a person in this space. This really vindicates our investment into this sector.” The push into alternatives (additionally, it has branched into purchasing mid-stream gas and oil) gives AGF a fourth leg to complement its retail, institutional and net worth divisions.

The fund has made two investments for a total outlay of $135 million: it acquired a desire for the passenger terminal at Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport and also invested in a 30-megawatt wind power development project in British Columbia.

The fund needs investments either in the ability and utilities sector or civil and social infrastructure assets “that exhibit sustainable downside protection, typically because of long-term contracts, concession agreements or a regulatory regime.” When it was launched the goal ended up being to achieve annual returns within the 8 per cent – 14 percent range.

bcritchley@nationalpost.com