Stonepeak beats target by raising $3.15bn infrastructure fund

(Update: this story has been amended with a more recent AUM figure for Stonepeak in the last paragraph.)

August 8, 2024 (Preqin News) – New York-based Stonepeak has closed its oversubscribed Opportunities Fund at $3.15bn, 26% above its original target of $2.5bn.

The infrastructure fund, which launched in November 2022, will invest in mid-market core-plus and value-added opportunities, targeting communications, transport and logistics, energy, and energy transition assets in North America and Europe.

Over 40% of capital in the fund has already been committed to six deals, including Canadian gas pipeline KAPS, the $1.2bn take-private of Logistec in partnership with Blue Wolf Capital Partners, and UK-based motoring insurance and breakdown cover provider AA.

Stonepeak Opportunities Fund is the seventh-largest infrastructure vehicle to close so far this year, according to Preqin data. It falls just behind Stonepeak Asia Infrastructure Fund, the firm’s debut Asia-focused strategy, which closed in March at $3.3bn. KKR’s Asia Pacific Infrastructure Investors II, which closed in February at $6.4bn, is still the largest closed this year. But Brookfield Infrastructure Fund V closed at $28bn in December 2023.

Stonepeak is currently targeting $15bn for its fifth flagship infrastructure fund, according to publicly available documents from the State of Connecticut Retirement Plans & Trust Funds (CRPTF), a slight increase from the $14bn raised in Fund IV. Investors who made the early interim close in March 2024 were eligible for a 10bps discount on management fees throughout the fund’s duration.

In the second quarter of this year, only $18.4bn was raised in unlisted infrastructure funds – just 5% of the average quarterly capital raised in the preceding five years ($33.7bn). Searches on Preqin Pro for core-plus and value-added infrastructure strategies fell in the past year, with value-added strategies having the worst drop off from 41% to 27%, according to Infrastructure Q2 2024: Preqin Quarterly Update.

Last month, Paris-headquartered Eurazeo closed its maiden infrastructure fund at €706mn ($768.5mn), committing 60% of the capital upfront to six energy transition companies, focusing on transitioning essential services delivered by infrastructure to a low-carbon economy.

The proportion of infrastructure investors expecting an increase in the asset class' performance has risen to 29% this year, compared with 17% at the same time last year, according to Preqin’s Investor Outlook H2 2024, published next week. This shift in attitude is also reflected in a sharp contraction in those expecting performance to worsen, from 12% this time last year down to just 3% as of June 2024.

Stonepeak spun out from Blackstone in 2011, receiving an anchor investment from TIAA, and has an AUM of $71.2bn. Since its inception, the firm has made 64 investments across Asia, North America, Latin America, and Europe.

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