Insights
March 2026
Infrastructure and real assets are financed over long periods, in environments that change. A capital structure that suits one asset can undermine another. The starting point is the asset itself: its stage of development, its cash flows, its regulatory setting and its counterparties.
The Africa Finance Corporation’s State of Africa’s Infrastructure Report 2025 estimates that the continent holds more than US$4 trillion in domestic capital, including about US$455 billion in pension funds and US$320 billion in insurance assets.1 The report argues that too much of this is held in low-risk, short-term instruments and too little reaches long-term productive sectors such as transport, energy and digital connectivity.1
Part of the explanation is structural. Long-term institutional investors need assets with predictable cash flows, clear governance and risk they are permitted to hold. Many infrastructure opportunities reach them before those conditions are in place.
Equity, debt and risk allocation should reflect what the asset can support at each stage. Early-stage projects carry development risk that operating platforms do not, and the financing should change as that risk is retired. A structure designed for a mature asset, applied to a greenfield project, places obligations on the asset before it can meet them.
Investment frameworks that are bankable and scalable, with clear governance and reporting, make wider participation possible. That means defining investment vehicles, risk allocation mechanisms and transaction frameworks that domestic and international institutions can assess against their own mandates.
We assess each investment for financial resilience, governance requirements, execution risk and stakeholder alignment, so that the capital structure supports durable performance over time. Depending on the asset, the Group may act as principal sponsor, anchor equity investor or partner alongside other capital providers.
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