BlackRock’s GIP said to hire for South-east Asia infrastructure

[SINGAPORE] Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a private markets firm that’s a unit of BlackRock, is setting up a team to finance infrastructure projects in South-east Asia that usually struggle to secure investment, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The firm, which manages more than US$170 billion in assets, is hiring a regional head for infrastructure debt based in Singapore, said the sources, who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations.

The person will build a small team to work on so-called blended finance deals, which combine public and private funding for projects often shunned by banks and investors due to long timelines or political and regulatory risks. The challenge around such ventures is creating a risk-reward structure that attracts enough private capital.

A spokesperson for GIP declined to comment.

GIP’s hiring supports a debt financing commitment made in November by BlackRock and other institutions, including the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. This is part of Singapore’s broader initiative called the Financing Asia’s Transition Partnership, which aims to raise US$5 billion from public, private and philanthropic sources for blended finance projects that can help cut emissions in the region.

Annual investment in clean energy in South-east Asia needs to double to US$130 billion till 2030 to help countries meet their long-term climate targets, according to the International Energy Agency.

HSBC Holdings, Citigroup and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking are among other lenders targeting new deals in the market for blended finance globally. Such transactions totalled US$18 billion last year, according to data provider Convergence. BLOOMBERG