Global listed infrastructure Fund Analysis: First Sentier’s Class I EUR
14 SEPT, 2026
By Xiaoying Zhou from RankiaPro
Infrastructure investing has moved from a niche allocation to a core building block for institutional portfolios seeking inflation-linked, contracted cash flows. The First Sentier Global Listed Infrastructure Fund, Class I EUR (ISIN IE00BYSJTY39), gives exposure to a concentrated book of 39 global infrastructure equities, managed against the FTSE Global Core Infrastructure 50/50 Net Index.
Peter Meany, Andrew Greenup and Edmund Leung have run the strategy since its 2008 inception, and it now holds €725.8 million in assets under management as at 31 July 2026. Its Article 8 SFDR classification and valuation-driven stock selection set it apart in a category often dominated by index-hugging alternatives.
Investment thesis
The fund buys listed companies that derive most of their earnings from transport, utilities, energy and communications infrastructure. Rather than replicating index weights across hundreds of names, the team runs a concentrated, fundamentals-driven book of 39 holdings, built stock by stock on valuation grounds.
The relevance of the strategy has grown alongside structural demand for grid capacity. The International Energy Agency reports that global electricity demand from data centres rose 17% in 2025, a pace far above overall electricity demand growth, putting sustained pressure on utilities’ capital expenditure plans. Airports and mobile towers face parallel, if less dramatic, structural tailwinds from travel recovery and data traffic growth.
Against passive infrastructure trackers, the fund’s differentiated value lies in active security selection: buying names after periods of regulatory uncertainty or disappointing earnings have depressed valuations, and selling holdings once a re-rating or corporate event (such as a takeover bid) has closed the value gap. This discipline aims to capture the sector’s structural growth while managing entry and exit points actively.
Investment process and management team
Manager continuity is a strength here: the same three-person team has overseen the strategy since 2008, with no evidence of disruptive turnover. That tenure supports alignment of interests and a coherent, testable track record attributable to the current process rather than a predecessor’s.
The declared process, bottom-up valuation analysis applied to a global infrastructure universe, is consistent with what the portfolio shows. Recent purchases of Sempra, Groupe ADP and AENA followed periods of depressed valuations or regulatory uncertainty, while sales of Norfolk Southern, Exelon and Dominion Energy followed strong re-ratings or takeover approaches. This pattern of buying weakness and trimming strength is the clearest evidence that the process is being executed as described, rather than drifting toward passive-like, index-hugging positioning.
The 39-name portfolio, against a much broader benchmark universe, implies meaningful active share. This is a differentiator, not a generic infrastructure sleeve, though it also means manager-specific stock calls matter more to outcomes than in broader, more diversified infrastructure vehicles.
Performance and risk analysis
Over the five 12-month periods to 31 July, the fund trailed its benchmark in four of them, only outperforming, in relative terms, in the year to July 2023, when a smaller loss (-9.0% versus -10.4%) suggests the portfolio’s composition offered some downside cushioning in a difficult market for the asset class.
Cumulative figures tell a similar story: over ten years the fund has returned 75.5% against 96.8% for the index, and 103.4% since the share class launched in 2016 against 123.3% for the benchmark. This is a persistent long-run performance gap, not a one-off. It is consistent with a concentrated, valuation-disciplined approach that can lag in periods when infrastructure re-rates broadly (as the index’s inclusion of a wider “other” country and sector bucket has captured), while offering some relative resilience in down markets.
The factsheet does not disclose a Sharpe ratio, annualised volatility or maximum drawdown for this share class, so no conclusion on risk-adjusted quality can be drawn beyond what the relative return pattern itself implies. Selectors wanting those figures should request them directly from the manager.
Current positioning
The portfolio is meaningfully concentrated relative to its benchmark, with the top ten holdings representing a substantial share of assets. Sector exposure skews toward electricity utilities, railroads and, notably, airport operators, an area where the fund runs a clear overweight versus the index. Exposure to gas and oil midstream infrastructure, by contrast, sits below the benchmark weight.
Geographically, the United States remains the largest single-country exposure, modestly above benchmark, with incremental additions in France and Spain reflecting recent airport-sector purchases. The fund’s exposure to the wider tail of smaller infrastructure markets captured by the index is comparatively thin, a natural consequence of running a concentrated, high-conviction book rather than a broadly diversified one. This implies a factor bias toward regulated and traffic-linked cash flows, and a liquidity profile anchored in large, exchange-listed names rather than niche infrastructure assets.
ESG and sustainability
The fund is classified under Article 8 of SFDR: it promotes environmental and social characteristics without a formal sustainable investment objective. Its environmental characteristic, a reduction in carbon intensity among utility holdings (which account for roughly 90% of portfolio emissions), is evidenced by a reported 14% decline over five years. Social characteristics are addressed through screening against the UN Global Compact and OECD Guidelines, using Sustainalytics data, with principal adverse impacts handled through engagement rather than exclusion. This is a measured, integration-level ESG approach: the environmental metric is scoped narrowly to the sub-sector where it matters most, which is coherent rather than a sign of greenwashing, though investors seeking taxonomy-aligned or impact-style commitments will not find them here.
Key risks
| Risk | Description | Mitigating factors |
|---|---|---|
| Single-sector concentration | A mandate confined to infrastructure equities concentrates exposure to sector-wide regulatory, rate and cyclical shocks. | Diversification across sub-sectors (utilities, transport, towers, airports) and a valuation discipline that limits overpaying for any one theme. |
| Currency risk | Underlying holdings are priced largely in US dollars and other non-EUR currencies; the EUR share class is not currency-hedged. | Broad geographic diversification and the availability of EUR-hedged share classes for investors wanting to remove this exposure. |
| Regulatory and political risk | Infrastructure earnings depend on rate-setting, environmental legislation and, in some cases, exposure to natural disasters. | A focus on regulated or contractually protected revenue streams, alongside ongoing engagement with investee companies. |
| Concentration and liquidity risk | A 39-name book means individual stock calls carry more weight than in a broadly diversified infrastructure fund. | Holdings are concentrated in large, exchange-listed names with established trading liquidity. |
| Style and cycle risk | A valuation-driven, concentrated approach can lag a broader benchmark during periods of widespread sector re-rating. | Long manager tenure and a demonstrably consistent process reduce the risk of unplanned style drift. |
Verdict
This is not a core equity replacement; it functions better as a satellite, real-asset sleeve within an institutional portfolio, aimed at investors seeking inflation-linked, contracted cash flows and some diversification away from traditional equity and bond risk factors. The concentrated, valuation-driven process suits selectors comfortable with tracking difference in exchange for active security selection, rather than those wanting close index replication.
It is best suited to private banks, family offices and EAFIs building a dedicated real-asset or infrastructure allocation, rather than generalist equity buyers. The thesis would need revisiting if there were a change to the long-tenured management team, evidence of drift toward broader, less differentiated positioning, or a persistent widening of the performance gap beyond what can be explained by the sector’s normal re-rating cycles.
This analysis has been prepared on the basis of publicly available information as at 31 July 2026, including the fund factsheet, the First Sentier Investors Global Umbrella Fund plc 2025 Annual Report and the Interim Report to 30 June 2026 (including its SFDR periodic disclosure annex), all provided by the management company. A full prospectus and a standalone sustainability-related document were not made available for this analysis. This article does not constitute investment advice or an offer to buy or sell shares in the fund. Professional investors should conduct their own due diligence. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
