NIIF secures $150 m funding from Canadian Pension Board

The National Infrastructure Investment Fund, the quasi sovereign fund, has secured a USD 150-million funding commitment from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) for its master fund. The Canadian entity may invest another USD 450 million alongside the NIIF in other opportunities where the master fund takes an interest, totaling a commitment of USD 600 million, the NIIF said in a statement on Thursday.

The CPPIB is one of the largest pensions plans in the world and has been actively investing in the country for the last many years, while the NIIF, set up last year, is a government-promoted vehicle to get investments into the critical infrastructure space. With the latest CPPIB investment, the NIIF master fund now has USD 2.1 billion in commitments and has achieved its initially targeted corpus, the statement said.

The master fund investors have co-investment rights of USD 3 billion, it said, adding the fund invests in core infrastructure sectors, with a focus on transportation, energy and urban infrastructure. Other investors who have committed money to the master fund include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Australian Super, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, Axis Bank, HDFC Group, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Life and the government.

"The opportunity to invest in, and alongside, the NIIF complements our existing direct investment strategy in the Indian infrastructure space," CPPIB's head of infrastructure Scott Lawrence said..

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