The White House has announced it is establishing the U.S. Rural Infrastructure Opportunity Fund – a $10 billion dollar investment fund that will promote rural economic development by increasing access to capital for rural infrastructure projects and speeding up the process of rural infrastructure improvements. CoBank, a national cooperative bank serving rural America and a member of the Farm Credit System, is the fund’s anchor investor, while Capitol Peak Asset Management will manage the fund and work to recruit more investors. According to a White House press release making the announcement, the fund “is immediately open for business and more investors can now add to the initial $10 billion in available capital. The new fund will allow a wide variety of new participants, including pension funds, endowments, foundations, and other institutional investors that have not traditionally had access to these markets to invest in rural development.” The fund is expected to provide investments for rural health care and educational facilities, rural water and wastewater systems, rural energy projects, rural broadband expansion, local and regional food systems, and other rural infrastructure.
