Merrill Lynch & Co plans to raise funds to invest in real estate and infrastructure, chasing rivals Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley in offering clients alternatives to takeover funds.

‘There’s no doubt the infrastructure space is an opportunity that’s clearly evolving,’ Ahmass Fakahany, co-president of Merrill, said yesterday at a news conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The size of the funds ‘depends on the opportunities’, Mr Fakahany said, declining to be more specific.

The New York-based company, the world’s third-largest securities firm by market value, aims to invest its own and clients’ capital in the funds, Mr Fakahany said. Pension funds, other institutional investors and wealthy people are putting more money into real estate, which can produce better returns than investing in corporate buyouts.

They are also pouring money into funds that invest in toll roads and other infrastructure as more governments around the world sell assets to private investors. Morgan Stanley, the largest property investor among Wall Street banks, is raising US$8 billion for its sixth high-return real estate fund, which will invest mainly in Asia and Europe.

Source: The Business Times, 21 June 2007