A monthly review and outlook of the Global Listed Infrastructure sector.
Market review - as at July 2025
Global Listed Infrastructure gained in July, buoyed by healthy earnings results, corporate activity within the asset class and rising interest in listed infrastructure assets from private market buyers.
The best performing infrastructure sector was Airports (+4%), led by Asian and European operators which gained against a backdrop of generally robust passenger volumes. Utilities / Renewables (+3%) also performed well. US electric utilities gained as political uncertainty eased following the passage of President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) into law on July 4th. The worst performing infrastructure sector was Towers / Data Centres (-3%), which gave up ground following strong ytd gains.
The best performing infrastructure region was Japan (+6%), reflecting strong gains for its electric utilities and passenger railroads. The worst performing infrastructure region was Latin America (-3%) as underperformance from Brazil’s broader stock market weighed on the country’s transport infrastructure and utility stocks.
Market outlook and Strategy
The Portfolio invests in a range of listed infrastructure assets including toll roads, airports, railroads, utilities and renewables, energy midstream, wireless towers and data centers. These sectors share common characteristics, like barriers to entry and pricing power, which can provide investors with inflation-protected income and strong capital growth over the medium-term.
The asset class remains supported by several structural growth drivers. Electric utilities, particularly in the US, face higher capital expenditure needs to meet the increases in electricity demand being driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), data centres, onshoring of manufacturing and electrification. While additional equity will be needed to fund some of this capex, this theme should also enable the sector’s Earnings per Share growth to accelerate from a typical range of between 3% and 5% per annum to between 5% and 8% per annum, representing a meaningful positive shift. Higher-than-expected prices for the 2026-27 PJM capacity auction (the mechanism which manages the electric grid across 13 eastern US states and Washington DC) provided the latest data point highlighting robust US power demand.
This rising demand is also likely to bolster the need for natural gas, which has a crucial role to play in maintaining energy reliability and affordability. As well as benefitting utilities, this is also likely to drive additional demand for North American energy transportation, storage and export assets, presenting energy midstream companies with new opportunities to invest and grow.
Digitalisation is another key theme for the asset class. We expect structural growth in demand for mobile data (underpinned by an ever-growing reliance on digital connectivity) to support long-term earnings growth for Towers. The adoption of 5G technology over coming years will require networks to handle increased data speed and lower latency as well as a much higher number of connected devices. The surge of interest in AI is driving data center demand, as well as boosting the need for electricity. Data centers are also benefitting from companies seeking the improved reliability and flexibility offered by cloud computing.
All stock and sector performance data expressed in local currency terms. Source: Bloomberg.
Source: First Sentier Investors and company data as at 31 July 2025
Global Listed Infrastructure
Infrastructure powers the world we live in – and when it comes to on-the-ground research, our team can be found on site
Investing in global listed infrastructure can offer inflation-protected income and steady capital growth from real assets delivering essential services. We search for best-in-class assets worldwide with high barriers to entry, structural growth and pricing power.
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