International Finance Corporation, the private sector lending arm of the World Bank, plans to float $1-1.5 billion IFC Asia Fund to invest in East Asia and Pacific region, a statement said.
The fund will be managed by IFC Asset Management Company LLC, which mobilises and manages third party funds for investment in developing and frontier markets. IFC AMC was created in 2009 to expand the supply of long-term capital to these markets.
"IFC will seed the IFC Asia Fund. Large global institutional investors are expected to invest alongside IFC," IFC said in the statement.
The multilateral funding agency will bring 20 per cent of the total corpus of the fund, subject to an overall cap of $200 million.
The investments by the fund will be across various sectors in infrastructure (transport, power, oil and gas, logistics, real estate etc.), manufacturing and services (hospitals, retail, textiles, metals, fertilisers etc.) and financial markets (banks, PE funds and NBFCs) and in a geographic span across Asia. It will co-invest in new and existing IFC projects.
In fiscal 2012-13, the international financial institution invested $1.38 billion in India, 43 per cent higher than the previous fiscal. Globally, IFC has largest exposure in India with a committed portfolio of $4.5 billion as on June 30, 2013.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)