Enable the renovation of large infrastructure assets (we don’t finance infrastructure acquisition, provide financing to project companies) by providing sizeable affordable long-term private debt in a deconsolidating manner
Offer institutional investors attractive risk adjusted yields with direct exposure to individual real asset, generating clearly identifiable cash flows, granted by high quality counterparties and operated by industry leaders, in basic and strategic core infrastructure sectors in the U.S.
Increase quality of service provided by core infrastructure: renovate facilities, save water and energy, improve service/productivity quality of living/safety, empower job creation and achieve social purpose, creating quantifiable responsible impact investing with long-term benefits
Why do we do it
Infrastructure is a defensive asset class with many merits in a current uncertain economic environment: Projects are providing long-term, visible, stable and secure cash-flows from value-adding renovation of tangible assets
Low correlation: Long-term private loans generate streams of fixed income with negligible correlation to financial markets, other asset classes or short to medium-term macro-economic cycles
Strong political/economic momentum: US$69 trillion is estimated to be required in infrastructure investment in the OECD between 2017 and 2035 this excludes social infrastructure, upgrades and extensions. The U.S. needs more than US$ 3 trillion/year of additional investments to renovate its infrastructure to current standards. US$325 billion were raised by private equity infrastructure funds over 7 years at end of 2017. With 150+ more funds currently raising a target of US$125bn and the entailed total amount of “dry powder” estimated at US$300bn, private equity funds alone are in need for financing of approximately US$1.2 trillion. Banks will finance part of this. Ceres will focus on asset renovation regardless of the owner.
How we do it
Being the leading independent infrastructure senior private debt fund, leverage the experience of our founders, favor volume and duration over margin, with a skilled team of unique composition and a cost-effective structure
Create a win-win approach for corporates, investors and grantors allowing the matching of investors’ respective liability needs with the projects’ duration, establishing more financially self-sustainable projects. Investing at the project level in a deconsolidating manner alleviates grantors’ and operators’ balance sheets. This allows for more numerous and larger projects to be realized
Select each project with risk management as first investment criteria to secure lowest absolute risk to investors. Structure senior loans to high quality investment grade infrastructure projects dedicated to basic need in the best rule of law country: the U.S., focusing on renovation of yellowfields (existing assets in need of important upgrade) and embed technology into infrastructure to adapt asset to future evolution of use and consumption
