S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI), a leading index provider, has launched range of bond indices designed to track the performance of debt issued by global infrastructure companies.

Alex Matturri, CEO of S&P Dow Jones Indices.

The indices track the fixed income component of S&P DJI’s infrastructure equity benchmarks, providing investors with a complete view of the performance of the debt and equity of global infrastructure companies.

The indices are suitable as underlyings to index-linked investment products such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

“Today’s launch of a suite of global infrastructure bond indices allows S&P Dow Jones Indices to provide investors with a complement to our well known suite of infrastructure equity indices, and places us one step closer to our stated goal as being the only major index provider to offer an extensive lineup of fixed income indices across all bond types throughout the world,” said Alex Matturri, CEO of S&P Dow Jones Indices.

“The demand for transparent benchmarks that measure infrastructure assets is growing worldwide, and S&P Dow Jones Indices is proud to offer infrastructure investors with another set of benchmarks to effectively measure the performance of these assets.”

Investors have been attracted to infrastructure investing due to the stable cash flows, lower risk and lack of competition in the industry. Infrastructure development is a capital intensive endeavour and as such there are high barriers to entry. Firms therefore enjoy high predictability of cash flows because they operate long-term assets that are often monopolistic in nature. The asset class has also experienced low correlations to other asset classes historically; an integral ingredient in portfolio diversification.

Infrastructure investment has historically been funded by government entities, however due to the demand for projects globally, funding is increasingly being sourced from the private sector. The suite of indices provide a robust and comprehensive benchmark to track the performance of infrastructure debt across various parts of the space, measuring corporate, municipal and preferred debt issued by infrastructure companies throughout the world.

The index family includes the Dow Jones Brookfield Global Infrastructure Broad Market Corporate Bond Index, the S&P US Preferred Infrastructure Stock Index, the S&P Municipal Bond Infrastructure Index and the S&P Taxable Municipal Revenue Bond Infrastructure Index.