Carlyle creates infrastructure fund

Carlyle creates infrastructure fund The Carlyle Group said an infrastructure investment fund it created in March 2006 has raised $1.15 billion, and it plans to make investments in transportation and water infrastructure projects in the United States and Canada.
   Carlyle said it would target enterprises valued at $100 million to more than $1 billion, including transportation, water, and wastewater facilities, including roads, bridges, tunnels, airport facilities, maritime ports, transit projects and “other public benefit infrastructure.”
   A team of 14 professionals running the fund is co-headed by Robert W. Dove, former executive vice president at Bechtel Enterprises, and Barry P. Gold, former managing director and co-head of the structured finance group at Citigroup.
   This April the fund acquired Houston-based Synagro Technologies for $772 million, including $310 million of debt. The company recycles sewage sludge and other sorts of organic non-hazardous waste.
   “U.S. public infrastructure requires $1 trillion in funding over the next five years. The private sector has a role to play, as seen in Europe, and can be a proven means of helping to satisfy such dramatic funding needs,” Dove said.
   Meanwhile, the Florence, Ala. Times Daily reported this week about local discontent with one of Synagro’s plants in Alabama.
   The plant converts sewage sludge it receives from different municipalities into fertilizer, including sewage sludge that arrives from New York City by train.
   Commissioners in Colbert County Tuesday voted unanimously to file an injunction against Synagro from operating a plant in Leighton, Ala., until it is determined that the fertilizer it produces from sewage sludge does “not pose a health hazard or until the state establishes stronger guidelines.”
   The Times Daily said Alabama’s commissioner of agriculture and industries has said the department has developed such guidelines and will require Synagro and other sludge processors to follow them.
   The paper said some residents complain about odors from the plant and worry that it might contaminate groundwater.
   Synagro said it serves more than 600 water and wastewater treatment facilities in the municipal and industrial sectors and operates throughout the United States.
   Carlyle has been an active investor in the maritime sector over the years in companies such at terminal operator Kinder Morgan, containership operator Horizon Line, and towing and offshore energy support boat company Seabulk.