BELGIUM – Two Belgian pension funds have become investors in an infrastructure fund run by Australian bank Macquarie, joining schemes such as ABP and British Airways.

“Most recent investors include the Belgian pension funds Pension Fund KBC and Suez-Tractebel Pension Fund and US institutional investor Northwestern Mutual,” said Macquarie, announcing the closure of its €1.5bn European infrastructure fund.

Earlier this year Suez-Tractebel entered into a pension pooling arrangement with Kredietbank, via a €1.1bn Luxembourg-based vehicle.

Other institutions backing the Macquarie fund, which launched in April 2004, include Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Germany’s HSH Nordbank, Dutch civil service scheme Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP, the British Airways fund, Oslo Pensjonsforsikring and Italy’s Generali.

Macquarie said the fund is the first pan-European dedicated infrastructure fund and has opened the sector “to a whole new group of investors”.

Fund managing director Jim Craig said: “In just 14 months we have committed approximately half of the fund to a portfolio of assets that provide both geographic and industry diversification and the fund has already paid two cash distributions."

He added that it would continue to look for “high quality assets” to invest in.