Digital Infrastructure Fund run by L&G hits £520 million mark during its initial round of funding.

Legal & General Group Plc Launches £2 Billion Digital Infrastructure Fund

In a bid to address the predicted £2 trillion funding gap in digital infrastructure by 2030, Legal & General Group Plc has launched a new digital infrastructure fund. The fund, which has reached £520m at its first close, will primarily invest in Europe and the UK, with a smaller, selective global allocation, mainly in the US.

The fund will focus on investments in data centres, fibre, wireless connectivity, and cloud services. Achal Arora, previously managing director in the European digital infrastructure team at Macquarie Asset Management, has been hired as managing director - digital infrastructure investments by Legal & General Group Plc. Jack Colbourne, a former partner and investment committee chair at Arcus Infrastructure Partners, has been appointed as a non-executive director on the fund's investment committee.

Legal & General Group Plc has made a strategic investment in Kao Data, a UK developer and operator of high-performance data centres. This move is part of the company's aim to expand its private markets proposition with the digital infrastructure fund. Kao Data has since expanded to seven facilities across four locations.

The digital infrastructure fund has attracted institutional capital from local government pension schemes, specialist infrastructure funds, and global asset managers. In addition, Legal & General Group Plc has also invested £750m in a hyperscale data centre development in Newham.

Bill Hughes, head of private markets, asset management at L&G, stated that infrastructure is a key tenet of their expanding private markets platform and a global, generational investment opportunity. The fund follows the final close of the L&G NTR Clean Power (Europe) Fund, which raised a similar amount to invest in renewable energy assets.

While no new information about fundraising or investment amounts is provided, the appointments of Arora and Colbourne are additions to Legal & General Group Plc's digital infrastructure team. The team's efforts are aimed at building strategic partnerships and deploying capital into assets that are essential to economic resilience and long-term productivity in the digital infrastructure sector.

It's worth noting that Space Forge, a high-profile figure, has joined a company, but no specific fund or investment details are provided in this paragraph.

As the world becomes increasingly digital, the demand for reliable and efficient digital infrastructure is accelerating. Legal & General Group Plc's digital infrastructure fund aims to meet this demand and contribute to the digital transformation of industries and economies.

Digital Infrastructure Fund run by L&G hits £520 million mark during its initial round of funding.