Private markets firm Ardian has announced a strategic partnership with S64, a private markets fintech firm, to launch an infrastructure fund for the Australian wealth market.
The new fund, S64 Ardian Access Infrastructure fund, will be an evergreen Australian unit trust with monthly subscriptions and quarterly liquidity.
Jan Philipp Schmitz, executive vice president, head of investor relations and deputy co-head of secondaries and primaries at Ardian said: “Ardian’s Access Infrastructure strategy enables private wealth investors to tap into one of the most resilient and attractive asset classes in private markets.”
“Infrastructure offers recurring cash yield, inflation protection, and historically lower volatility, making it a powerful addition to investor portfolios.”
S64’s Australian Unit Trust Platform gives financial intermediaries the ability to distribute private markets and listed alternatives products to wholesale and advised retail clients.
Matt Stovold, head of Australia & New Zealand at S64, said: ” We are proud to partner with Ardian to bring institutional-quality infrastructure investing to Australia’s wealth market.”
“Through the S64 Australian Unit Trust Platform, advisers and their clients gain a seamless, technology-enabled gateway to a globally diversified infrastructure portfolio managed by one of the world’s foremost private markets asset managers.”
The firms said the new fund will give investors access to both Ardian’s infrastructure and infrastructure secondaries platforms, which has $47bn and $102bn in assets under management respectively.
Schmitz said: “By combining the value creation potential of direct investments with the diversification and J-curve mitigation of secondaries, and leveraging one of the world’s largest secondary platforms supported, Ardian provides unparalleled access to high-quality, diversified assets aligned with global trends such as digitalisation, energy transition, and infrastructure modernisation.”
Ardian manages $200bn in assets across private equity, real assets and private credit. It is headquartered in Paris.