Stafford Capital Partners finalises swift deployment of fourth infrastructure secondaries fund and makes first investment of fifth fund
London, 13 November 2023 - Stafford Capital Partners (“Stafford”), a leading international private markets investment and advisory group, has finalised the deployment of its fourth infrastructure secondaries fund, SISF IV, and made the first investment of its fifth fund, SISF V. The pace of deployment has meant that the Stafford team has invested the full fund amount almost two years ahead of schedule.
In Q3 2023, Stafford made the following transactions:
A USD 30 million co-investment in a diversified high-growth datacentre platform in the US. The platform focuses on providing capacity at the edge of the network in response to ultra latency requirements of 5G, AI applications and IoT. The sector for decentralised capacity is currently growing significantly stronger than the overall datacentre market.
A USD 50 million LP secondary in a leading global fund. The manager is among the top infrastructure managers with a very strong track record; and the portfolio is well diversified consisting of landmark assets within their respective markets.
A USD 65 million LP Secondary into a recent vintage fund managed by one of the leading digital infrastructure managers. The fund consists of assets well-diversified across technologies and countries in markets with significant potential growth.
These transactions represent the final investments for SISF IV and the first investment for SISF V.
The SISF funds follow the successful strategy of providing investors access to a diversified global infrastructure portfolio through off-market secondaries and special situations, with core infrastructure risk predominantly in Europe, North America, and Australasia, through LP as well as GP-led secondaries and co-investments. The Fund is classified as an Article8 fund under the Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation and it actively targets energy transition assets while strongly limiting its fossil-fuel related exposure.
SISF IV closed in August 2022 with €731m in commitments from 33 investors across 13 countries. It is now fully deployed with 20 deals in 22 positions across 277 assets as of November 2023 and well ahead of its ambitious Net-Zero climate targets.
Commenting on the finalisation of the deployment, Stafford CEO Angus Whiteley said: “The rate of deployment of SISF IV has been swift and ahead of expectations. There has been great interest and support from investors for a secondaries strategy, that is built around risk control and Net Zero targets”.
Commenting on the transactions, William Greene, Managing Partner of Stafford Infrastructure said: “These three transactions were an opportunity to capitalise on our extremely attractive pipeline. The growth outlook for digital infrastructure is very strong, but the asset class is costly to access as a result. Through our secondaries approach, investors can take advantage of the asset class often at material discounts, while also avoiding the blind pool investment risk which comes with primary investments”.
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