(Reuters) – Global investment firm KKR & Co said on Wednesday it had raised $6.4 billion for its fund focused on infrastructure and energy related investments across the fast-growing Asia Pacific region.
New York-based KKR said the fund was the largest pan-regional infrastructure fund to have been raised for Asia Pacific.
“As Asia accounts for more than 60% of global growth, driven by rising domestic consumption and productivity, rapid urbanization, and an enormous emerging middle class, the need for new infrastructure and sustainable energy sources will continue to accelerate,” said Hardik Shah, a partner at KKR’s Infrastructure team based in Mumbai, in the statement.
KKR said the fund received strong backing from new and existing global investors including public and corporate pensions, sovereign wealth funds, insurance companies, endowment funds, and asset managers.
The fund’s mandate covers sectors including renewables, power and utilities, water and wastewater, digital infrastructure, and transportation, according to KKR.
It added that it had already invested or committed more than half of its capital from the fund across some 10 investments.
KKR first established its global infrastructure team and strategy in 2008 and now manages some $56 billion in assets under management across more than 80 infrastructure investments globally.
In Asia Pacific, KKR has organically grown to some $13 billion in assets under management since its inception in 2019, according to the statement.
In 2021, KKR raised $3.9 billion in its inaugural Asia Pacific-dedicated infrastructure fund, KKR Asia Pacific Infrastructure Investors SCSp, which was the largest Asia dedicated pan regional fund at the time.
“Infrastructure is a key pillar of KKR’s global and regional strategy,” said David Luboff, Co-Head of KKR Asia Pacific and Head of Asia Pacific Infrastructure at KKR.
(Reporting by Nilutpal Timsina in Bengaluru and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Lincoln Feast.)
