European Evergreen Infrastructure Funds: Performance Update (October 2025)

Evergreen infrastructure equity is no longer a niche wrapper in the European wealth channel. The proliferation of UCI Part II and ELTIF structures has broadened access and accelerated product launches. In Borgline’s tracked universe of 16 European-domiciled evergreen vehicles focused on infrastructure equity, aggregate assets are now over $14.2bn in recorded NAV. Despite the meaningful capital base, this remains a young cohort: the average time since inception is just over two years, the oldest vehicle is a little over five years, and several funds launched in 2025.

In the first 10 months of 2025 (to 30 Oct 2025), the Borgline Evergreen Infrastructure Europe Index delivered a 12.46% net return in USD terms. The index is equal-weighted and comprised 11 European-domiciled private market evergreen funds as of the reconstitution date.

Relative to listed comparables, evergreen returns were competitive while volatility remained materially lower:

• Outperformed Dow Jones Brookfield Global Infrastructure by 21 bps.

• Underperformed FTSE Developed Core Infrastructure 50/50 by 278 bps.

• Although volatility says little about risk over such a short period, it aligned with expectations versus listed peers. The Borgline Index recorded annualized volatility of 2.69%, significantly lower than 3.77% for the FTSE Developed Core Infrastructure 50/50 and 7.72% for the Dow Jones Brookfield Global Infrastructure over the same window.

The 2025 YTD profile is consistent with what investors typically expect from evergreen private infrastructure: equity-like return potential, but with smoothed volatility driven by appraisal-based pricing and less frequent valuation marks.

Return dispersion between 31 Dec 2024 and 31 Oct 2025, presented through two currency lenses, shows a significant left tail.

• In EUR terms, outcomes cluster around low single digits: median 1.27%, IQR -2.21% to 4.02%. The negative left tail is dominated by funds holding overwhelmingly USD-denominated assets, where FX moved against EUR investors.

• In USD terms, the entire distribution shifts upward, primarily reflecting the ~12% USD depreciation effect across the window: median 13.31%, IQR 9.42% to 16.24%, and a bottom decile of 5.67%.

The USD distribution is broadly right-shifted and relatively tight through the middle, with a median of 13.31% and an interquartile range of 9.42% to 16.24% (a 6.82pp IQR width). In other words, half of the cohort clustered within a mid-single-digit band, suggesting that, once viewed in USD, cross-fund outcomes were driven more by shared market and sector exposures than by extreme manager differentiation. The bottom decile at 5.67% indicates a meaningful but not catastrophic left tail: underperformers lagged the median by ~7.6pp, pointing to portfolio mix and implementation differences (e.g., concentration, value-add tilt, timing of marks).

A simple split by fund size suggests scale was not a meaningful driver of returns over 31 Dec 2024 to 31 Oct 2025:

• Larger funds: 12.45% average USD return

• Smaller funds: 12.33% average USD return

• Difference: 12 bps, economically negligible versus cross-fund dispersion

This indicates that, across this period, FX exposure and asset mix dominated outcomes, while potential scale advantages (fee leverage, sourcing breadth, portfolio construction) did not show up in a higher realized return profile.

Where performance separates more clearly is mandate scope:

• European allocation strategies: 11.26% average USD return

• Global allocation strategies: 12.95% average USD return

• Global outperformance: +1.69 percentage points

A plausible explanation is that global products in this cohort tend to carry more diversified asset exposure and, in many cases, higher allocations to core-plus / value-add segments, which can increase return potential (and sometimes FX complexity) relative to more region-constrained portfolios.

Overall, Europe’s evergreen infrastructure fund market has scaled quickly but remains early in its life cycle, with 2025 YTD performance broadly matching the asset class’s promise: equity-like returns with notably smoothed volatility. The index’s 12.46% net USD gain compares favorably with listed infrastructure, while cross-fund dispersion is largely explained by currency and portfolio mix. Fund size offered no measurable edge, but mandate breadth did: globally oriented strategies modestly outpaced Europe-only vehicles, underscoring the importance of allocation scope and strategy in shaping outcomes in this young cohort.

1. Borgline database

2. FTSE Developed Core Infrastructure 50/50 Index - https://www.lseg.com/en/ftse-russell/indices/infrastructure#t-factsheets

3. Dow Jones Brookfield Global Infrastructure - https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/equity/dow-jones-brookfield-global-infrastructure-index/#overview