AMP launches $125 mn core sector fund

AMP Capital Investors, the fund management arm of the Australian financial services group AMP, launched its second India Infrastructure Fund with a target size of $100-125 million.

The fund will invest in listed as well as non-listed companies in sectors including transport, telecommunications, energy and power.

Phil Garling, head of infrastructure, AMP Capital Services, said the Indian infrastructure sector was under-invested.

"With the Indian economy poised to grow 8 per cent this year, there is a huge demand for infrastructure investment," he said.

While AMP Life Ltd has committed $30 million, Asian Development Bank has agreed to chip in with $ 15 million.

The fund would be tapping Korea, Singapore, the US and a number of European countries for resources, said Krishan Sehgal, chief executive officer, The Infrastructure Fund of India.

The first fund, launched in November 1999, achieved an internal rate of return of 37.1 per cent. The turnaround in the equity markets in the last 12-14 months helped the fund more than treble its net asset value from $20 million in January last year to over $75 million by December end.

AMP Capital Investors' first fund had a corpus of $50 million and it had invested in several companies including Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL), Bharti Tele-Ventures, Tata Teleservices and Gujarat Pipavav Port.

It recently completed its first partial exit from IGL.

Sehgal said the second fund would focus on ports and shipping companies to begin with. Companies like Maersk India were being considered, he said.

The fund was open to invest in airports, electronic media, power generation, distribution and transmission companies, pipelines and even hospitals, he said.

Sudipto Mundle, deputy country director, ADB said that the institution's investment in the fund was in line with its commitment to finance commercially viable private sector infrastructure projects.

ADB, he said, was also likely to tap the Indian domestic market for raising $ 100 million-equivalent debt in rupees in March this year.