养老基金正在寻找即使在股市做得严重时也会表现的投资。他们还希望长期资产匹配他们必须在未来几年内完成的付款。保护的政府债券，特别是那些长期持续的政府债券，适合账单。麻烦的是，近年来，这种债券的收益率急剧下降。
基础设施提供完美的替代方案，例如那些管理投资收费道路，机场，公用事业和其他重要服务的专业资金。基础设施不仅是一个固有的更安全的投资，而不是股票的投资，回报明显高于政府债券的投资。
这个消息没有被置若罔闻。它年代purred tremendous investment flows into this area in recent years. However, the valuations for infrastructure assets have become so stretched, and the amount of debt employed so large, that investors are now exposed to a wide variety of risks.
Infrastructure constitutes a separate asset class, according to a report issued last summer by David Rickards, head of equities research at Macquarie Securities, the Australian bank that is the world’s leading manager of infrastructure funds. The definition of what constitutes infrastructure, though somewhat hazy, generally comprises businesses and services with monopoly-type competitive positions. Their stable revenues are not supposed to vary much with the business cycle and usually adjust upward in line with inflation.
What’s more, airports, roads and ports don’t disappear overnight. Their secure cash flows can be reliably projected years into the future, making infrastructure attractive to institutional investors, such as pension funds. Rickards suggests that infrastructure constitutes a hybrid asset — somewhere between an inflation-protected government bond and conventional equity — that provides the benefit of moderate to high returns with low to moderate volatility."
A few years ago, Sydney-based Macquarie launched its own benchmark, the Macquarie global infrastructure index, which originally comprised some 250 public companies from a variety of countries. Analyzing the performance of the index, Rickards observes that the historical correlation between infrastructure businesses and the stock market has declined. In recent years the infrastructure index has also produced better risk-adjusted returns than have global equities or bonds.
Many investors have heeded the message that infrastructure provides, in the words of Macquarie’s Rickards, a "shock absorber to a portfolio during a downturn." But is this really the case? There are reasons to expect that the future isn’t likely to resemble the past.
There has been a flood of money into this field. Infrastructure pioneer Macquarie faces increasing competition from Wall Street’s finest. Goldman, Sachs & Co. recently closed a $6.5 billion fund. General Electric; private equity firms like Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.; and deep-pocketed Middle Eastern investors are also getting in on the game. A Standard & Poor’s report in November by Michael Wilkins, London-based head of the ratings agency’s European infrastructure finance group, estimated that between $100 billion and $150 billion had been raised by infrastructure funds and was waiting to be invested. Add in debt, and this money could be used to finance deals worth $500 billion to $1 trillion.
然而，这笔资产有限的资产供应量可以获得。因此，基础设施企业的价格一直在飙升。为了获得相关的英国港口，高盛去年夏天在兴趣，税收，贬值和摊销之前支付了17倍的收益。早些时候，西班牙建筑公司Grupo Ferrovial购买了U.K.机场商务额为类似的多家，麦格里及其西班牙合作伙伴Cintra，签署了75年的印第安纳省收费公路，以获得38亿美元。这条157英里的道路价格在前一年的EBITDA的65倍上签到。
当投资者以夸张的价格获得资产时，它只预计将来会降低回报。那么当现金流量产量仅为1.5％时，麦格理到印第安纳道路投资的投资将如何预测约12.5％的回报？答案是，这种基础设施交易，如大多数，主要是债务资助。麦格理只为其19亿美元的股权施加了3.85亿美元的股权。流量增长的因素和可能增加收费，麦格威能够实现预计返回。
借入巨额资金可能offset the consequences of paying inflated amounts for infrastructure investments in the first place. But it also increases the risks. It’s true that the credit markets have been extraordinarily accommodative of late. Infrastructure deals are generally financed with nonrecourse debt. These loans are not only cheap by historical standards but are often hedged against rising interest rates.
然而，标准普尔威尔金斯表示，基础设施交易的债务金额已达到高达30倍EBITDA。他警告说，“基础设施行业正在遭受过度高估的双重诅咒和过度杠杆 - 资产泡沫的经典症状。”
随着基础设施行业更加拥挤，其定义已被拉伸，包括电话目录，航空公司，机场手推车，广播电台，电信网络和停车场。麦格理甚至被认为是伦敦证券交易所的倾斜，其活动被认为是“金融基础设施”。来自这些业务的现金流量更容易受到技术变革和商业周期的变幻莫测，而不是传统基础设施的工艺。
Anyone considering an investment in infrastructure might spend a minute perusing the "risk factors" in the prospectus of the Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG), a toll road business that is the world’s largest listed infrastructure fund. These include construction risk, operation risk, interest rate risk, inflation risk, business risks, feasibility risks, regulatory risk, government action risk and finally, acts of God (fires, floods, earthquakes, war and so forth).
这些不仅仅是模板免责声明。基础设施管理人员通过预测未来的收入和支出，并折扣回到目前的折扣来源估值。折扣现金流模型，覆盖很长一段时间对假设的变化非常敏感。根据最新年度报告，MIG模型中使用的风险溢价的增加仅为0.5％的风险溢价将在估值中擦去10亿美元（8亿美元） - 这笔款项大致相当于股东保留收益。
最重要的是，收入可能不符合预期。基础设施资产通常以特殊用途车辆持有，其中几个持有少数股权的合作伙伴。这些车辆中的债务不必在基金的资产负债表上合并。此外，与这些职位相关的利率对冲和再融资风险并不总是明确的，因此投资者可能只有一个模糊的概念对他们的股权赌注有多脆弱。
随着杠杆率在基础设施领域上升，投资者对商业周期的风险以及信贷市场的条件也攀升。寻求安全长期投资的养老基金受托人将避免这一领域，至少直到当前的基础设施狂潮已经死亡。
Edward Chancellor, an editor at Breakingviews.com, is the author of Devil Take the Hindmost, a history of financial speculation.
| 基础设施的五大合并和收购优惠* | ||||
| 交易价值** | Target | Activity | 收购 | Announced/ |
| ($ billions) | completed | |||
| 23.90美元 | BAA (U.K.) | 机场和机场 - | Grupo Ferrovial（西班牙） | March 17, ’06 |
| 终端服务 | 7月24日 | |||
| $20.10 | Autoroutes du Sud de | 收费公路 | Vinci (France) | 12月14日，'05 |
| 洛杉矶法国 | 5月5日，'06 | |||
| $ 13.50 | sociétédesautoroutes. | 收费公路 | eiffage（法国）和 | 12月14日，'05 |
| Paris-Rhin-Rhône (France) | Macquarie Infrastructure | 06年4月21日 | ||
| Group (Australia) | ||||
| $ 13.00 | Rinker Group | Construction | Cemex（墨西哥） | October 30, ’06 |
| （澳大利亚） | 材料 | N / A. | ||
| 11.60美元 | railtrack ***（u.k.） | Rail transportation | Network Rail (U.K.) | June 27, ’02 |
| October 3, ’02 | ||||
| * Excludes utility and energy deals. | ||||
| ** At announcement. | ||||
| *** In receivership | ||||
| Source: Dealogic. | ||||