Institutional Investors and Infrastructure Investing

Institutional investors expect infrastructure to deliver long-term stable returns but gain exposure to infrastructure predominantly through finite-horizon closed private funds. The cash flows delivered by infrastructure funds display similar volatility and cyclicality as other private equity investments, and their performance similarly depends on quick deal exits. Despite weak risk-adjusted performance and failure to match the supposed characteristics of infrastructure assets, closed funds have received more commitments over time, particularly from public investors. Public institutional investors perform worse than private institutional investors. ESG preferences and regulations explain 25%–40% of their increased allocation to infrastructure and 30% of their underperformance.

Creating value in investments with the use of private equity funds

The influence of the private equity sector on the contemporary economy is quite significant. This is why the present paper attempts to examine mechanisms private equity investors apply in order to increase the value of their investments. The literature review has identified the most fundamen- tal elements of creating value on the basis of empirical, academic studies that verified hypotheses regarding the influence of particular mechanisms on the process of value creation in private equity investments. This paper is divided into five parts that describe the elements of the investment pro- cess, research into value creation, financial arbitration, as well as direct and indirect mechanisms of creating investment value. The paper is mainly based on the review of foreign-language literature.