Australia's Macquarie Bank and market index provider FTSE launched on Monday an index for investors in infrastructure assets like privatised utilities, aiming to tap expected strong growth in this sector.
The Macquarie Global Infrastructure Index (MGII) is based on 258 shares in companies around the world that manage and run assets such as airports, toll roads, privatised water companies and power plants.
Investors such as pension funds are embracing infrastructure as a distinct asset class because it can offer long-term income that retirement funds need to meet the cost of big liabilities.
The size of assets covered by the new index has risen from $465 billion to $1.207 trillion over the past five years, David Rickards, global head of equities research at Macquarie, said in a statement.
Since the start of 2000, the MGII has delivered a compound return of 10.4 percent, outpacing world equities, he said.
European airport and telecom privatisation and growing government interest in setting up toll roads should be important trends in the sector over coming years, Macquarie said.