National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has announced the second closure for its Master Fund with Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek committing up to $400 million.
NIIF said Temasek will also become a shareholder of National Investment and Infrastructure Ltd, its investment management company, but did not disclose the size of the shareholding.
“We are delighted to have Temasek as an investor in the NIIF Master Fund and as a shareholder of National Investment and Infrastructure Ltd, alongside other eminent institutional investors,” said T Sujoy Bose, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIIF.
NIIF, with a proposed corpus of ₹40,000 crore — out of which the Centre will contribute 49 per cent — was created in 2015 as an Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), under SEBI regulations.
Its current shareholders, apart from the Government of India, are Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), HDFC Group, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance and Axis Bank. It achieved the $1-billion first closure for its Master Fund with ADIA in October 2016.
₹14,000-crore target
The Master Fund is NIIF’s first operational fund for which the fund managers have set a target of ₹14,000 crore, Bose said. The fund was created to invest in operational assets with a focus on the transportation, energy and urban infrastructure sectors.
Earlier this year, the fund partnered with Dubai’s largest port operator, DP World, to invest up to $3 billion in ports, terminals, transportation and logistics businesses in India through its investment vehicle, Hindustan Infralog.
It acquired a 90 per cent stake in Continental Warehousing Corporation for $400 million in March 2018.