Antin is differentiated by a strong focus on culture and a consistent set of principles in place since its establishment: entrepreneurship, accountability, discipline, and partnership. Antin views its culture as a critical source of competitive advantage that positions it as an attractive prospective business owner with the best investment teams in the sector. A strong and stable culture is also highly important to Fund Investors given the long-standing nature of investment commitments.
The strength of the Firm’s culture can be seen in the stability of the senior management team, with an average tenure of nine years, and the very low level of turnover seen within its wider investment team.
Operating in a highly attractive and fast-growing market, Antin benefits from multiple structural growth drivers.
Private markets have grown significantly in recent years and are expected to continue to do so — overall AUM is projected to grow by 7.2% on an annualised basis between 2019 and 2025¹ — with infrastructure representing the fastest growing asset class. This growth is driven by increasing investor allocations, a continued hunt for yield in a low-interest rate environment and a desire for strong and consistent returns. While investor allocations are expected to increase in both the short- and long-term, current allocations to the sector remain substantially below existing target levels.
¹Source: PwC, Prime time for private markets: The New Value Creation Playbook
Antin is a leading independent infrastructure investor, benefitting from the second highest quantum of capital raised across its relevant peer group of European headquartered firms. Within this peer group, Antin is the largest pure-play infrastructure investment platform.
For nearly 15 years, Antin has been researching relevant macro trends, refining its investment approach and deepening its network of industry players. This focus and dedication have drawn business and asset owners to Antin, enhancing its attractiveness.
Backed by its existing platform, the Firm believes that it has significant potential for more attractive growth, given the large size of the global private infrastructure market (~€670 billion) versus Antin’s current size. The Firm has the opportunity to continue to scale and add new complementary strategies:
With a team of more than 30 people in New York to add to the teams in Paris and London, Antin is now aiming to expand its geographical presence to Asia Pacific with the opening of an office in Singapore in 2021.
Antin will seek to expand into new geographies, while preserving the Firm’s culture. Antin’s first expansion outside Europe was into North America, which came as a natural next step following its successful European track record. The Firm chose North America as it is the largest addressable infrastructure market and the closest to Antin’s DNA in terms of culture. In the last three years Antin has built a sizable team in New York and has expanded its reach through the continent, proving that it can successfully expand into new geographies.
Antin now aims to pursue its geographic expansion in other regions by replicating the model already successfully implemented in North America.
In Asia-Pacific, Antin is in the process of establishing its first on-the-ground presence with a new office location in Singapore. The Singapore office will be incorporated into a regional hub to serve Antin’s large and diversified Fund Investor base across the Asia-Pacific region. Over time, this regional office could act as a springboard for further activities within the region.
The Firm is well-positioned to launch new strategies thanks to the brand and reputation it has established within the industry and among its Fund Investor base. While the range of options for new strategy themes is broad in nature, Antin will only take such steps after a comprehensive and careful assessment.
Following the IPO, Antin will have a strengthened balance sheet, which will facilitate the Firm’s growth and enhance its ability to leverage new and existing investment strategies spanning all maturity cycles. The Firm’s capital deployment in the medium term is expected to include the continuation of the Flagship Fund Series, the Mid Cap Fund Series and the launch of the NextGen Fund Series. The Mid Cap strategy, like the Flagship Fund Series, focuses on the energy and environment, telecom, transport and social sectors. The NextGen Fund Series will be dedicated to the transition to a greener, more sustainable and more connected future by investing in the infrastructure of tomorrow.
Acquisitions may be part of Antin’s future growth. Antin considers that team performance and cultural fit are the most important criteria in evaluating potential acquisition targets. These criteria represent a high hurdle for acquisitions and a focus on organic growth will be favoured generally.
Antin has played a pioneering role in defining and shaping what was formerly considered a nascent asset class. To do this, it employs a differentiated investment strategy and approaches the infrastructure market with a clear definition of an investment opportunity’s risk profile to identify compelling prospects that may sometimes fall outside conventional assumptions about infrastructure. This ability to innovate has allowed Antin to lead investments in new sectors initially not viewed as infrastructure-related by the market but eventually considered as essential infrastructure subsectors.
Spanning various economic cycles since Antin’s creation, this differentiated investment approach has translated into a track record of delivering attractive, risk-adjusted returns across Antin’s Funds. Antin has achieved an investment performance of 24% Gross IRR and 2.7x Gross Multiple across the Antin Funds.
Identifying investor relations as a critical success factor, Antin has remained committed to growing its investor relations team in tandem with the growth in the size of its managed funds. Since it was founded in 2007, Antin has raised fee-paying commitments of approximately €17 billion in six funds across two investment strategies. Antin has also increased the size of the funds in its Flagship Fund Series over successive fundraising cycles, growing from €1.1 billion for Fund I in 2008 (exceeding its €1.0 billion target) to €6.5 billion for Fund IV in 2020 (exceeding its €5.5 billion target). This represents a size increase for each flagship fund of an average of 81% compared to the prior fund raised.
In parallel with fundraising growth, Antin’s Fund Investor base has also significantly expanded and become more balanced over time. Today, Antin counts over 200 institutions amongst its Fund Investors, more than three times the count in 2015.
Antin’s current financial model is highly management-fee centric, with management fees accounting for over 97% of Antin’s total revenues in 2020, which provides a stable and highly predictable revenue generation profile, given the long-dated nature of the Antin Funds. Antin operates a transparent fee model and does not normally charge transaction fees, monitoring fees or other similar compensation other than the management fees charged on FPAUM².
The Antin Funds’ strong investment performance has boosted FPAUM growth over time, with the Firm’s FPAUM doubling over the last three years and driving growth in management fees. In addition to management fees, the Firm is contractually entitled to receive carried interest in new funds, which is expected to form a greater proportion of revenues over the medium term.
The Firm’s effective management fee rate has remained broadly stable at 1.4% since 2015, reflecting consistent management fee rates across fund generations and investment strategies.
Antin also benefits from a highly scalable operating model, with a proven track record of making stable margins over time. With personnel costs representing approximately 75% of the Firm’s expenses (excluding taxes and depreciation and amortization), Antin’s cost base is also predictable and controllable.
²Fee-paying assets under management
To deliver on its responsible investment commitments, Antin implemented an investment approach that integrates sustainability at all stages of the investment process. Antin applies the concept of materiality when determining which sustainability issues to address in its portfolio. This approach allows Antin to remain pragmatic and ensure that its sustainability efforts are aligned with what matters the most to its portfolio companies’ business and stakeholders.