The North American infrastructure finance sector marked a considerable uptick in activity over the first half of 2024, with transaction activity dominated by oil and gas, telecoms and transport.

According to IJGlobal data – at the time of publication, but subject to change as more data become available – infrastructure finance in H1 2024 logged a 19.7% increase when held against results from H1 2023. This equates to $426.8 billion of capital deployed this half, compared to $342.8 billion in the corresponding period from last year.

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The project finance of infrastructure and energy marked a similar uptick to the broader “infra finance” category having logged an increase of 22.7% – up to $134.2 billion of deals to make it to financial close in H1 2024, from $103.7 billion in H1 2023.

Transaction flow followed suit for infrastructure finance with 545 deals closed in the first half of this year, against 406 deals closed in the corresponding half from 2023. IJGlobal data reveal an even starker improvement on H1 2022 when 354 transactions made it over the line.

Commercial lending matched performance having deployed $112.5 billion over the course of H1 2024, a 27.8% increase on H1 2023 when $81.2 billion was arranged. The capital markets enjoyed a similar rise of 22% from $220.4 billion of paper written this first half, against $171.9 billion of bond financing in the corresponding half from last year.

Development finance institution (DFI) activity in North America – not usually a very active space across the region – leapt by 55.4% from just $1.4 billion in H1 2023 to $3.1 billion in H1 2024. Activity on this front was driven by Export Development Canada, lending predominantly to national energy projects.

However, primary financing fell in the first half of this year – down by 14.9% – with $42.6 billion of greenfield deals to have closed, compared to H1 2023 when $48.9 billion made it to financial close. H1’s figures were bolstered by refinance activity which shot up by 53.9% to $111.8 billion in H1 2024, against $51.6 billion in H1 2023.

M&A activity across infrastructure and energy dipped by 8.7% across North America with $75 billion of transactions closed in H1 2024, against $81.5 billion in H1 2023.

The project finance and infra finance leader boards are topped by the $7.5 billion debt financing facility for cloud computing company CoreWeave. The facility was led by funds managed by Blackstone, with strategic participation from Magnetar (co-lead investor) and Coatue. The New Jersey-based AI infrastructure company will use these funds to build out its cloud data centres.

As is customary for North America, O&G and power were the most active sectors across the region – and this played out again this first half. O&G logged $116.4 billion infra values in H1, followed by $100.9 billion for power. In the project finance sector, O&G and telecoms scored $32.7 billion and $ 32.5 billion, respectively.