NEW DELHI: The newly formed National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) on Monday announced its first investment, partnering with UAE-based marine logistics major DP World to create an investment platform that will pour up to $3 billion into ports, terminals, and logistics projects in India.
The NIIF, India’s first sovereign wealth fund, is a fund of funds set up by the government in December 2016 to maximise economic impact through infrastructure development. NIIF’s corpus is proposed to be Rs 40,000 crore, of which 49 per cent will be put in by the government and the rest raised from third parties.
“NIIF has made good progress,” Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said, “This platform is expected to mobilise equity investment of Rs 20,000 crore in these infrastructure facilities.”
NIIF CEO Sujoy Bose said the platform would make logistics more efficient and give a boost to the economy.
“This is a good example of how NIIF can work with international capital and expertise to invest at scale to build critical infrastructure in India.”
Meanwhile, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, group chairman and CEO of DP World, said the group’s expertise in building logistics infrastructure together with the NIIF’s local knowledge and government partnership is the right combination to take advantage of the growth opportunities in India.
Apart from the ports sector, an India-UK Green Growth Equity Fund is also being set up under the fund of funds vertical of NIIF, with anchor commitments of GBP 120 million each from Government of India (through NIIF) and Government of UK. The first close of NIIF’s master fund saw contributions from a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and four Domestic Institutional Investors — HDFC Group, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Life and Axis Bank.