Brent Burnett

In a market increasingly dominated by a small group of AI-linked companies, investors are actively looking for diversification, and infrastructure is one of the few sectors areas delivering it. Infrastructure offers exposure to hard assets, broad economic activity, and essential services that people rely on every day, from energy to transport and water.

With more than a decade of data showing that infrastructure can deliver solid total returns, reliable income, and meaningful downside protection across cycles, the asset class also offers a degree of inflation resilience, through contract-linked pricing and rising replacement costs. Importantly, long-term investors view volatility differently. Short-term market movements or geopolitical shocks don’t change the underlying need for critical assets. That’s where private infrastructure continues to prove its value.

Global tailwinds support next phase of infrastructure investment

2026 is shaping up as a key year for infrastructure expansion globally. Europe is doubling down on energy security, while the rapid growth of AI and data centres is driving demand for power and digital infrastructure.

There are also underappreciated opportunities, including last-mile fibre and specialist logistics infrastructure—particularly in supply-constrained areas—continues to offer attractive fundamentals.

In addition, power scarcity is supporting higher prices in energy markets, even as renewables face policy headwinds in some regions. And in private markets, the infrastructure secondary market is emerging as a compelling opportunity particularly for investors with the scale and relationships to access high-quality assets.

APAC and Europe dynamics shaping infrastructure outlook, with Australia among relative beneficiaries

APAC is far from a uniform story. Asia remains a dominant buyer of global energy, accounting for around 75% of Gulf oil and 60% of LNG, which has left the region highly exposed to recent market volatility. Prices have surged, with benchmark LNG rates jumping roughly 50% in the early phase of the conflict, and some spot cargoes trading at multiples of pre-war levels. The impact, however, is uneven. South Asia and parts of frontier ASEAN are feeling the pressure from higher energy costs, while resource-rich markets such as Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia are benefiting, seeing stronger cash flows as demand drives higher utilisation across energy export infrastructure. Meanwhile, in Europe, 2026 is shaping up as a pivotal year for infrastructure investment. Governments are accelerating efforts to strengthen energy security, while surging demand linked to AI and data centres is driving new investment across power and digital infrastructure. The key takeaway is that infrastructure is not a single trade. It’s highly regional, and investors need to be selective in how they position capital.

By Brent Burnett, Global Head of Infrastructure and Real Assets

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Brent Burnett

Leading private markets investment management firm Hamilton Lane (Nasdaq: HLNE) has announced the launch of the two new evergreen funds, offering expanded access to private market infrastructure investments to accredited investors around the world.

The Hamilton Lane Global Private Infrastructure Fund (“HLGPI”) is available to qualified investors, including high-net-worth (“HNW”) investors and their wealth advisors in EMEA, Australia, Canada, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

The Hamilton Lane Private Infrastructure Fund (“HLPIF”) is a continuously offered closed-end investment vehicle registered under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“40 Act”) and is available to U.S. clients, including HNW investors and their wealth advisors.

HLGPI and HLPIF are total return strategies, targeting both capital appreciation and income, designed to provide exposure to an institutional-quality, global portfolio of infrastructure assets through a single investment. With a focus on identifying and capturing strategic opportunities in the infrastructure space, including direct co-investment and secondary investments, the Funds aim to deliver attractive returns and downside protection, paired with liquidity in the form of monthly or quarterly redemptions.

The Funds’ diversified portfolios focus on core plus and value add infrastructure assets that share the traditional characteristics of infrastructure, including high barriers to entry and durable cash flows through contracted revenue streams, as well as the potential for inflation-hedging qualities, competitive total returns with potential downside protection, income yield and portfolio diversification. Both HLGPI and HLPIF seek to capitalize on unique opportunities across the power, transportation, data and telecommunications, environmental and energy sectors.

Brent Burnett, Head of Infrastructure and Real Assets, commented, “We are thrilled to announce the launch of HLGPI and HLPIF. Infrastructure is one of the fastest-growing asset classes in the private markets, underpinned by the fundamentally infrastructure-enabled themes of energy transition and the continued rollout of AI which we believe will continue to create investment opportunities for years to come. Hamilton Lane is one of the largest investors in private infrastructure globally on a discretionary and supervisory basis, and the Funds aim to build on the success of our broader platform by offering unique access and expertise across infrastructure sectors, asset types and geographies to private wealth and institutional investors around the world.”

For more than 24 years, Hamilton Lane has been designing infrastructure-focused separate account mandates (SMAs) aimed at delivering attractive performance relative to benchmarks for clients of all sizes around the world. These new vehicles are an extension of Hamilton Lane’s broader infrastructure platform, which the firm has been building since 2000 and which includes closed-end funds and SMAs totaling nearly $72 billion in assets under management and supervision as of June 30, 2024.

Steve Brennan, Head of Private Wealth Solutions, added, “Since the launch of our Evergreen Platform in 2019, we have steadily expanded upon our commitment to enable access for a broader set of investors to the private markets. Today, with the additions of HLPIF and HLGPI, our Evergreen Platform now includes five funds across multiple strategies, serving hundreds of investors around the world and with a net asset value of approximately $8.1 billion^[1].”

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Notes:
[1] NAV as of August 31, 2024 for the combined Hamilton Lane evergreen platform

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