CFS reshuffles infrastructure fund

Macquarie loses mandate

Alice Uribe

Fri 29 Jan 2010

Colonial First State (CFS) has reshuffled its FirstChoice Global Infrastructure Securities Fund after nearly four years in business.

Boutique Australian manager RARE Infrastructure won a $200 million mandate and New York-based international real estate securities manager Cohen & Steers nabbed a $100 million mandate.

"We're quite happy with RARE as they are a dedicated infrastructure manager and we felt they had the skills, experience and the depth of team we were looking for," CFS head of FirstChoice investments Scott Tully said.

"Cohen & Steers claim to be the first fund manager focusing on real estate and diversified into infrastructure, so we felt they had a good understanding of the sector."

As a result, Macquarie lost its $250 million mandate and the other original manager in the fund, Lazard, found its mandate reduced from $250 million to $200 million.

"The sector has developed a lot over the time that the portfolio has been running. We wanted to appoint managers that we had a greater confidence in," Tully said.

"There wasn't any standout issue with Macquarie, it was just a combination of new managers over old managers."