KKR & Co is deepening its push into Asia’s infrastructure market with senior hires and a possible new fund as spending on regional projects gathers pace.
People familiar with the matter said the private equity group has recruited David Luboff, the chief executive of Macquarie Group’s Asia Infrastructure Fund, to serve as its new head of Asia Pacific Infrastructure. Luboff, who is based in Singapore, is expected to take charge of the firm’s Asian infrastructure operations from early next year. Reuters said it could not reach him for comment.
A KKR spokeswoman confirmed the appointment but did not offer further details. She also said the firm had hired Hardik Shah, previously with Brookfield Asset Management, as a Mumbai-based director focused on identifying infrastructure investment opportunities.
The company is also considering an Asia-focused regional fund, according to people familiar with the discussions. One source said the vehicle could be as large as $1.5 billion and would target areas including power-related investments, toll roads and telecom infrastructure. KKR declined to comment on the fundraising plans, and the people involved could not be named because the information was confidential.
Raj Agrawal, KKR’s global head of infrastructure, told Reuters last week that “Asia is an attractive part of KKR’s global infrastructure investment strategy. Across the region, macroeconomic and societal trends are fostering a unique need for expertise and private capital solutions for projects in a wide range of infrastructure sub-sectors,” He declined to comment on a new Asia-focused fund.
The hires come after KKR closed its $7.4 billion global infrastructure fund in September. That fund is aimed mainly at North America and Europe.
Asia remains a relatively small destination for infrastructure capital. Preqin data cited in the report showed the region accounted for about 15 percent of global fundraising over the past ten years. This year, only four Asia-focused infrastructure funds worth a combined $4.1 billion had been raised, representing about 5 percent of global activity.
Even so, infrastructure dealmaking in Asia picked up between 2015 and 2017 and made up more than a quarter of the global total last year, as local economies spent trillions of dollars trying to improve aging infrastructure.
KKR is still a late entrant in the region compared with Global Infrastructure Partners, I Squared Capital, and the infrastructure arms of Macquarie Group, Brookfield Asset Management and JPMorgan. The firm’s infrastructure business, established in 2008, manages about $13 billion in assets under management.
Reporting by Kane Wu in Hong Kong and Anshuman Daga in Singapore; Editing by Sam Holmes
