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India’s $4.3 Billion Infrastructure Fund Makes Its First Road Purchase

National Investment and Infrastructure Fund acquired Essel Devanahalli Tollway in Karnataka, Essel Dichpally Tollway in Telangana.

India’s $4.3 Billion Infrastructure Fund Makes Its First Road Purchase
Workers prepare bracing while working at a road project in India. (Photographer: T. Narayan/Bloomberg)

India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Ltd., backed by the federal government and others including Canadian pension firms and sovereign wealth funds, has purchased its first road assets.

NIIF, which has a corpus of $4.3 billion, acquired Essel Devanahalli Tollway in the southern state of Karnataka and Essel Dichpally Tollway in Telangana through its NIIF Master Fund, it said in a statement Monday. The projects will be managed by NIIF’s proprietary platform Athaang Infrastructure.

“Over the next few years, we aspire to invest approximately $1 billion of equity capital into road assets, along with our co-investors,” Vinod Giri, NIIF’s managing partner, said by email. “The Indian roads sector offers a strong pipeline for investments through acquisition of operating road assets including annuity/hybrid annuity projects by Indian developers and asset monetization plan of the government.”

NIIF counts the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Asian Development Bank and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority among its investors. Attracting foreign investment is crucial to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of spending $1.5 trillion on new roads, rail links and other infrastructure over the next five years as public finances deteriorate.

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