Maple-Brown Abbott’s infrastructure affiliate has announced a partnership with a London-based investment firm, Pacific Asset Management.
Maple-Brown Abbott Global Listed Infrastructure (MBA GLI) will work with Pacific to launch its global listed infrastructure fund on the Australian market.
Working in partnership, the firms will launch the Pacific Maple-Brown Abbott Global Infrastructure Fund, which is set to be run by MBA GLI’s nine-strong Sydney-based investment team.
The team specialise in constructing portfolios of 25-35 holdings using a disciplined definition of infrastructure while focusing on companies with defensive characteristics, inflation-linked revenues and strong sustainability credentials.
The deal will see Maple-Brown’s existing UCITS fund transferred into the Pacific UCITS structure, bringing an expected US$600 million in assets under management (AUM).
With the addition of Pacific, the new fund will have access to Pacific’s institutional-grade infrastructure, best-in-class technology and operational resources, which it said will deliver meaningful efficiencies and pricing power.
There is also the benefit of tapping into Pacific’s established distribution network, allowing the firm to access global financial institutions, wealth managers and institutional investors.
MBA GLI, an affiliate of the boutique fund manager, manages US$3.6 billion ($5.3 billion) across institutional, intermediary, high-net-worth (HNW) and retail clients globally. MBA GLI is 54 per cent owned by co-founders Andrew Maple-Brown, Steven Kempler and Justin Lannen, and other members of the investment team, with the remainder owned indirectly by Antipodes Group since 2024.
Headquartered in London, Pacific is an independent asset manager founded in 2016 with £14.1 billion ($28.3 billion) in AUM, offering strategies across emerging market equity, North American, European and global equities, and global active credit, among others.
MBA GLI co-founder and managing director Andrew Maple-Brown noted an alignment in the two firm’s priorities, pointing to a shared commitment to delivering higher returns through specialist investment management.
“We focus on core infrastructure with lower volatility, inflation protection and income stability. Leveraging the technology and business infrastructure provided by Pacific means that we can focus on the job of investing and providing alpha to investors,” Maple-Brown added.
Pacific Asset Management chief executive Matthew Lamb said the partnership is a deliberate effort to broaden the firm’s range in order to meet the needs of clients and a changing market.
“By partnering with MBA GLI, we can provide our investors access to a highly experienced and successful global infrastructure team with a track record of identifying investment opportunities in companies that offer inflation protection and low cash flow volatility.
“Their approach aligns perfectly with our range of hard to industrialise strategies, and we are very much looking forward to working with them.”
