Plenary, Dexus battle for AMP infrastructure

Plenary has been putting up a fight to gain control of AMP’s infrastructure funds. Picture: Hollie Adams

AMP’s sale of its fund manager Collimate Capital is expected to close at the end of September, but Plenary is still trying to unseat Dexus as the incoming manager of AMP’s infrastructure funds.

In recent weeks, Plenary has been putting up a fight to gain control. Apparently, it has been working to get a law firm such as Ashurst, Allens or Freehills in its corner to provide advice.

Whether Dexus keeps the infrastructure funds comes down to the views of South Korea’s Mirae Global Investments, thought to be the kingmaker, and major Australian funds, although sources say Plenary has so far been unable to gain the support needed.

In April, Dexus agreed to buy Collimate Capital – previously known as AMP Capital – for a $250m up-front payment, in a deal that was set to see it manage $28bn of local real estate funds and infrastructure funds.

Digital Bridge took the global infrastructure funds management operation.

But Collimate’s investors have had other ideas.

Australian listed real estate fund Mirvac has managed to wrestle control of the valuable $7.7bn AMP Capital Wholesale Office Fund, which owns Sydney’s Quay Quarter, out of the hands of Dexus. Earlier, Dexus had taken control of the AMP Capital Diversified Property Fund from AMP.

Dexus also lost a $3bn mandate from AMP investor UniSuper to GPT, concerning up to $20.2bn of assets.

Plenary has previously made efforts to take control of AMP’s Community Infrastructure Fund, but it lacked investor support.

Plenary is an Australian infrastructure investment business specialising in public-private partnerships. It was founded in 2004 by three former ABN Amro employees.