Actis hits US$2.75bn hardcap for fourth energy fund

Actis has announced that it has reached final closing on its fourth energy fund Actis Energy 4 (AE4) with commitments hitting a hardcap at US$2.75billion.

The fund was raised by Actis’ in-house team and was significantly oversubscribed, smashing its original US$2billion target size in just over seven months.

The fund will invest in select countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia targeting control investments in electricity generation businesses offering scale, diversification and growth and market leading high growth electricity distribution businesses. AE4 already has an extremely strong pipeline with US$2billion of deal equity either completed or in late stage including four large scale regional platforms.

Demand for electricity and quality infrastructure in growth markets is high and rising. Energy services are crucial to a country’s economic development. An estimated US$10 trillion of investment is required by 2035 across non-OECD countries to meet future demand. Since inception Actis has raised cumulative commitments of over US$5.6 billion and is committed to 30+ transactions in the Fund's target markets.

This fund closing follows a slew of successful exits from previous funds including GME (Latin America), Umeme (Uganda), Energuate (Guatemala) and Globeleq (Africa). To date, Actis portfolio companies have provided 68 million people with access to electricity and built 15GW of generating capacity.

Mikael  Karlsson, partner and co-head of the energy business at Actis, said:

“As the leading growth market investor in the energy sector we have never seen a more compelling market opportunity. The demand for new investment within the electricity sector is US$1.5bn  every  day with renewable energy generating US$0.5bn of investments per day in non OECD countries. We are delighted that our investors share our  vision for this opportunity and we are grateful to them for placing their trust in our proposition.”