The UK’s Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PiP) has reached the first close of its in-house fund, the PiP Multi-Strategy Infrastructure Fund.

The vehicle attracted £125m (€160m) in commitments from UK pension schemes.

The fund was launched earlier this year, with the backing of PiP founding investors West Midlands and Strathclyde pension funds, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF) and RPMI Railpen.

PiP did not provide a breakdown by investor of the £125m commitment to the Multi-Strategy Infrastructure Fund, although Strathclyde previously said it had made a £50m commitment.

Alan Goodman, senior portfolio manager at the PPF, welcomed the first close of the fund, which the PPF was part of. 

“We remain confident that by bringing further pension fund capital together through this vehicle, it will deliver a route of access to market aligned to a long-term investment strategy,” he told IPE.

Mike Weston, chief executive at PiP, said the first close of the fund was “another key step” in the development of the PiP.

“This first close demonstrates investors believe PiP works and is delivering on its promise,” he said.

“The founding investors have trusted the PiP team to use a portion of their scheme assets to source and take direct ownership of UK infrastructure assets on their behalf.”

He told IPE the platform was “actively working on a couple of acquisitions for the portfolio”, but that he could not be more precise about the timing of any closes on them “given that they are live deals”.

The PiP is aiming to raise £1bn for the Multi-Strategy Infrastructure Fund, which will invest directly in UK infrastructure and has a minimum commitment of £1m.

There is also a co-investment programme designed to allow larger investors to achieve further benefits of scale.

The typical fund investment is expected to be £25m-75m.

Over its five-year investment period, the fund expects to buy and build a portfolio of 15-20 UK infrastructure assets.

The PiP has two externally managed funds and has invested more than £1bn through these. 

Its in-house fund is overseen by Ed Wilson, investment director at the PiP.

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