Plus: Environment Agency puts £170m to work with Schroders Greencoat, backing renewable and energy transition infrastructure.
GLIL Infrastructure’s seven investors have collectively allocated an additional £475m to the vehicle for investment into core UK infrastructure assets.
The new capital commitments have come from GLIL’s six local government pension scheme (LGPS) clients – Greater Manchester, Merseyside, West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Berkshire and the London Pensions Fund Authority – as well as NEST.
Between them, the seven institutions have now allocated £4.1bn to GLIL, of which more than £3bn has been deployed into infrastructure assets including renewable energy production and energy transition projects, as well as transport, water, ports, schools and hospitals.
Ted Frith, chief operating officer at GLIL Infrastructure, said the new commitments reflected an increasing appetite among pension funds for UK infrastructure investment.
A survey conducted by GLIL and published last month reported that almost two thirds (65%) of schemes expect to increase their exposure to infrastructure over the next 12 months.
“As well as offering reliable, inflation-linked returns, infrastructure investment is critical to the UK’s energy transition, supporting local communities and powering the economy,” Frith said.
“With the help of our LGPS members and NEST, we will be able to capitalise on a strong pipeline of new investment opportunities that provide reliable returns for many years to come.”
Environment Agency invests in renewables via Schroders
The £4.6bn Environment Agency Pension Fund has committed £170m to a UK private markets fund run by Schroders Greencoat.
The investment into the Greencoat Renewable Income was facilitated by the Brunel Pension Partnership and brings the fund’s total committed capital to £1.35bn. It is continuing to raise money until the end of this year and has already received investments from other Brunel funds including Avon, Cornwall, Dorset, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
Schroders said the fund has already invested more than £1bn into UK renewable infrastructure assets that “generate stable, inflation-protected income streams over a long-term horizon”.
Target assets will include wind, solar and bioenergy investments, as well as “opportunistic” allocations to technologies such as heat pumps and green hydrogen electrolysis.
Craig Martin, chief pensions officer at the Environment Agency Pension Fund, said the investment would contribute to the scheme’s target of investing 17% of its total assets in climate solutions by 2025.
