3i Infrastructure buys three companies from

London-based 3i Infrastructure has said it has agreed to buy a 45-per cent stake in three companies owned by Oiltanking GmbH, a privately held storage company based in Hamburg, Germany, and from Malta Freeport backed by the Maltese government, for €305 million ($417 million). This is its first deal since its March initial public offering.

3i is investing €115 million of equity and taking on €190 million in debt organised by RBC Capital Markets to fund the purchase. The companies - Oiltanking Singapore Ltd, Oiltanking Amsterdam BV and Oiltanking Malta Ltd - provide oil storage services to oil and petrochemical companies and traders in petroleum products and chemicals. 3i Infrastructure said that the existing management teams at the companies would remain intact.

3i Infrastructure sold its shares in March, in a weak equity market, amid signs that investors were beginning to lose their appetite for listed infrastructure funds. The £700 million it raised was well below its target of £1.3 billion. It said at the time that further deals in Europe, Asia and North America were at hand.

The Oiltanking deal is expected to close in August, but 3i Infrastructure says it has invested just over half of the net proceeds raised in the March IPO. Its other buyouts include water utility AWG plc, which a 3i-led consortium agreed to acquire last year for £2.3 billion and 3i''s holding in Infrastructure Investments plc, a secondary private finance initiative (PFI) project investor.