New funds give access to fast-growing private market infrastructure space

A leading name in private market investments has announced the expansion of its $72 billion AUM infrastructure platform with two new funds open for investors, including one exclusively for those in the US.

Hamilton Lane’s two new evergreen funds are available to accredited investors and are total return strategies with both capital appreciation and income targeted. They are designed to give investors exposure to a global portfolio of institutional grade infrastructure assets via a single investment.

These core plus and value add assets include those in power, transportation, data, and telecoms, environmental, and energy sectors. They share the traditional characteristics of infrastructure assets such as high barriers to entry and durable cash flows through contracted revenue streams. They also have the potential for inflation-hedging qualities, competitive total returns with potential downside protection, income yield and portfolio diversification.

Brent Burnett, the firm’s head of Infrastructure and Real Assets says the assets in focus should have a positive long-term outlook.

“Infrastructure is one of the fastest-growing asset classes in the private markets, underpinned by the fundamentally infrastructure-enabled themes of energy transition and the continued rollout of AI which we believe will continue to create investment opportunities for years to come,” he said.

The firm has been creating infrastructure focused SMAs for almost a quarter of a century and is now one of the world’s largest investors in private infrastructure on a discretionary and supervisory basis.

“The funds aim to build on the success of our broader platform by offering unique access and expertise across infrastructure sectors, asset types and geographies to private wealth and institutional investors around the world,” added Burnett.

The two funds are:

• The Hamilton Lane Global Private Infrastructure Fund (“HLGPI”) which is available to qualified investors, including high-net-worth investors and their wealth advisors in EMEA, Australia, Canada, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
• The Hamilton Lane Private Infrastructure Fund (“HLPIF”) which is a continuously offered closed-end investment vehicle registered under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“40 Act”) and is available to US clients, including HNW investors and their wealth advisors.

The strategies include direct co-investment and secondary investments and they aim to deliver attractive returns and downside protection, paired with liquidity in the form of monthly or quarterly redemptions.

Steve Brennan, Head of Private Wealth Solutions, added, “Since the launch of our Evergreen Platform in 2019, we have steadily expanded upon our commitment to enable access for a broader set of investors to the private markets. Today, with the additions of HLPIF and HLGPI, our Evergreen Platform now includes five funds across multiple strategies, serving hundreds of investors around the world and with a net asset value of approximately $8.1 billion [NAV as of August 31, 2024, for the combined Hamilton Lane evergreen platform].”

Private market AUM is set to more than double the growth rate of public assets, creating a rich opportunity for asset managers and wealth firms alike, according to a recent analysis by Bain & Company.