African Infrastructure Investment Managers (AIIM) has surpassed its funding expectation.
AIIM was launched to “invest long-term institutional unlisted equity in African infrastructure projects,” its website mentions. The company’s investments extend across Eastern, Western, and Southern Africa, with $2.8 billion in assets under management.
Now, AIIM will scale its work in light of reportedly raising $954 million, which comprises $748 million in commitments and $206 million in co-investments, Shoppe Black reports.
Marking its fourth pan-African infrastructure fund, AIIM surpassed expectations by 50% with the backing of 29 investors from all over the world, such as pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, and family offices, with half of the commitments coming from Development Finance Institution (DFI) 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,” Paul Frankish, AIIM’s head of strategic initiative, said, per Shoppe Black.
The fund will target digital infrastructure, energy transition, and mobility and logistics across Africa, and 60% of capital from the fund has already been committed to seven platforms.
“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,” Olusola Lawson, AIIM’s managing director and Co-CEO, explained, according to Shoppe Black.
He continued, “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.”
