Babcock & Brown Infrastructure on Tuesday became the latest Australian investment fund to announce that it would slash dividends and speed up the selling of assets to pay down debt after its share price lost 58 per cent this year.

The ports-to-energy group is burdened with a net debt of about A$10bn (US$8.53bn), 14 times its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Compared to some of its peers, however, it has no material refinancing requirements in the next 12 months and analysts said the pressure to sell assets was coming from the market rather than the banks.