On the go: The Railways Pension Scheme, which manages more than £37bn in assets, has jointly acquired a majority stake in a battery energy storage company with the Alberta Investment Management Corporation.
Railpen and AIMCo have jointly acquired a 94 per cent stake in Constantine Energy Storage, a grid-scale battery energy storage platform supporting the energy transition.
CES will invest more than £400mn to build out a pipeline of battery energy storage projects in the UK. The projects are part of the UK’s plans to transition to net zero and are currently under development by Constantine Group subsidiary Pelagic Energy Developments.
Railpen investment director Lewis Vanstone said: “We are delighted to acquire a significant stake in CES as part of our commitment to investing in innovative assets that grow our members’ capital over the long term.
”This acquisition marks Railpen’s first direct investment into battery storage and reflects our ambition to drive positive change through our portfolio, working with management to develop the critical infrastructure needed to support the UK’s transition to net zero.”
Meanwhile, Railpen’s latest annual report for its year ending December 31 2021 highlighted the decline of the fund’s use of external active management over the past decade.
During the year, Railpen launched its third internally managed, fundamental equity strategy within its Growth Pooled Fund, which focuses on mid and small-sized companies.
Its sole remaining external quantitative equity mandate was terminated in 2021. An allocation was made to Chinese government bonds, while within the property allocation Railpen completed a number of new lettings, lease negotiations and transactions.
The report also revealed that Railpen committed to a Chinese A-shares equities mandate with Baillie Gifford last year. It also made a new allocation to Semble Ventures’ second funding round, Semble Partners II, which invests in venture capital.
This article originally appeared on MandateWire.com
