Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ and Australia’s Plenary Group have formed a co-investment platform that will focus on opportunities in public infrastructure across the Middle East and central Asia.

The move comes almost a year after ADQ paid A$1 billion (US$651 million) for a 49% stake in Plenary, a Melbourne-based alternatives investment manager with around $59 billion of assets.

According to ADQ, the infrastructure platform, called Plenary Middle East, will leverage its public-private partnership model to drive sustainable growth in the Middle East and central Asian regions.

“The infrastructure financing gap in sectors such as healthcare and transportation is estimated to require $15 trillion globally by 2040,” the wealth fund says in a statement on February 26. “Public-private partnership has the potential to bridge this financing gap.”

Hamad Al Hammadi, ADQ’s deputy group chief executive officer, says the platform aligns with the wealth fund’s focus on “building world-class foundational systems and infrastructure essential to the functioning of economies and societies”.

ADQ had around $225 billion of assets under management as of June 2024.