Antinuclear

Partners Group – which was started by three former Goldman Sachs bankers in 1996 and has been operating in Australia for seven years with a fairly low profile – would like to complete one to two local deals a year, deploying up to $300 million a year. The company has €1 billion of dry powder that it can access for direct infrastructure investments globally.

“While we stay away from [large privatisations]… we still believe there are very attractive opportunities in infrastructure in Australia,” said Benjamin Haan, Partners head of private infrastructure Asia-Pacific.

Partners Group, which manages €42 billion ($70 billion) of assets, and Canada’s OPSEU Pension Trust (OPTrust), were part of a global consortium that recently won the right to build and operate a $450 million wind farm in Ararat, Victoria, the third-biggest in Australia. This was the first local renewables deal for the pair, following more than a year of uncertainty regarding the renewable energy target. Federal Parliament agreed in June to a new target of 33,000 gigawatt hours (Gwh) of production by 2020.