Morgan Stanley hopes to invest up to a quarter of its $4 billion global infrastructure fund in emerging economies such as China and India, a senior official at the US fund said. Gautam Bhandari, who on Tuesday was named as head of Morgan Stanley Infrastructure in India, the Middle East and sub-saharan Africa, said he saw opportunities in Indian transport, energy and telecom infrastructure.
"Not every market is ready in terms of private infrastructure investments; India is," Bhandari told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday. "There is a fair amount of public-private partnership success here, and looking at the velocity of deals, we felt the need to place a dedicated team here." Morgan Stanley's fund, which completed its fundraising in May, will be competing against the likes of Australia's Macquarie Group, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank to channel billions of foreign investor money into Indian infrastructure.
The government estimates about $500 billion will be needed to rebuild its crumbling roads, airports and power plants by 2012, and has said the lack of infrastructure is a constraint on growth in Asia's third-largest economy. The Indian team is an addition to the infrastructure fund's existing teams in the United States, Britain, Hong Kong and China, said Bhandari, who is moving from New York for his role.
"The Asian team is almost as big as the North American team, clearly illustrating the focus areas," the 38-year-old executive said. Recruitment for the Indian team was underway, he said, but declined to put a target on its likely size.
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