One of Europe's biggest private-equity firms, CVC Capital Partners Ltd., had dropped its plans to put up a EUR2 billion ($2.6 billion) infrastructure fund after having a difficult time to attract investors, two people said with knowledge of the talks.

CVC Capital started the fundraising in 2008. The Company had pledges from three external backers, said the sources, who asked not to be named as talks are still on going.

The fundraising campaign by CVC Capital's infrastructure group was in contrast with those of CVC Capital's leveraged acquisition and debt teams. CVC Credit Partners was able to raise EUR351 million in an IPO of a credit fund in June, while the firm was looking for more than EUR10 billion in a bid to create Europe's largest buyout fund.

An analyst at London-based Campbell Lutyens & Co., a private-equity advisory firm said, "Before the financial crisis, the market was led by some investment banks and large private equity groups, who typically used private equity fund structures and fee levels which didn't always reflect the longer term and lower risk return nature of the underlying assets. Following the crisis institutions became more focused on the alignment of interest with general partners in terms of structure and fees."