Fiscal policy, vaccines and green initiatives are creating waves of change in infrastructure. What exactly is infrastructure now, and most importantly what is not infrastructure? This session examined how the digitalization of economies and the shift to renewable energy offer potential long-term growth opportunities in infrastructure; and how it can play a role in long-term investor portfolios.[vc_quotes layout=”accordion” 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title=”Moderator” el_class=””][vc_empty_space height=”10px”]
Key takeaways
In a panel session on opportunities in infrastructure investors noted how technological change is repricing assets and many investors are substituting fixed income with infrastructure debt.
US President Biden’s plans for sweeping infrastructure investment could have important investor consequences around tax cuts and renewables. Driving 5G development will enable greater penetration for tower companies and economically sensitive businesses like freight railway will benefit from growth.
Higher yields can be found in non-investment grade infrastructure allocations, but investors shouldn’t view this as a long-term strategy.
Renewables are often linked to quasi-guaranteed cashflows comprising long-term contracts with lower volatility. In contrast, digital assets will be subject to huge change as the “revolution” continues. Hence the need to adopt a shorter time frame investing in assets over a 3 to 5-year horizon.
In periods of high inflation, infrastructure credit risk falls. This is priced into how debt products are valued in the market, providing a “windfall opportunity.”
Investor areas of focus include renewables, telecoms and digital infrastructure given new trends in remote working.
Data is increasingly helping resolve intermittency challenges in renewables.
Stranded or obsolete assets could spike in traditional energy infrastructure as well as in assets subject to technological change. For example, technological disruption is growing in the satellite space.
The demand for AI driving data centre construction might be “insatiable”, but the chief investment officer of the $115 billion UniSuper thinks that investors could be taking on technology debt and misreading the regulatory tea leaves as they rush to buy digital infrastructure.
Careful consideration of trends in Thames Water's cost of capital and volatility, calculated using an appropriate risk model, would have anticipated the operator's financial difficulties. The failure to recognise the loss in value at the right time raises the question of how to value this type of asset.
New research on private markets at Railpen has produced a framework that focuses on scenario planning and the uncertainty inherent in illiquid investments taking account of “portfolio steerability”, allocation drift and the impact on short-term liquidity management resulting in a more dynamic approach.
An overweight position in real assets and private equity, and an underweight to equities and bonds positioned the Ohio School Employees Retirement System for success in the last year but CIO Farouki Majeed is now even more convinced a stagflationary environment is likely and is positioning the fund accordingly.
CDPQ’s large and growing infrastructure portfolio deliberately hunts large, direct investments in new geographies where returns come from generating growth in the underlying companies. Top1000funds.com talks to Emmanuel Jaclot, executive vice-president, and head of infrastructure in an interview from CDPQ’s Montreal headquarters.
Investors discuss the importance of being able to decarbonise infrastructure assets over the long-term. It's leading to lacklustre appetite for investments that can't - like airports.
Historical performance and cash flow characteristics differ enormously among infrastructure asset sectors, and even between assets of the same sector, says the vice president of PGIM IAS’ private assets research program. But scarcity of data makes infrastructure performance notoriously hard to study.
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