Dutch pension investor APG has sold part of its stake in train leasing company Alpha Trains to Dutch pension fund PGB, HarbourVest and a third unnamed investor for an undisclosed sum.
APG, retains just under 50% share in the company, after selling part of its indirect stake in Europe’s largest independent train leasing company through the Arcus European Infrastructure Fund, representing a 12% indirect interest in the train lessor.
Carlo Maddalena, a senior infrastructure portfolio manager at APG, declined IPE Real Assets’ request for comment about the timing and the purpose of the transaction, which comes less than two months after APG increased its stake in the company to 62% by buying a 20.9% direct stake in Alpha Trains from exiting shareholders AMP Capital and Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments)
At the time, the Netherlands’s second-largest pension investor PGGM also acquired a ”large minority interest” in Alpha Trains from PSP Investments.
Ideal investment
Yorick Groen, a senior portfolio manager for alternative investments at PGB hailed the deal as “an ideal investment for PGB” in European infrastructure.
“With this investment, PGB contributes to the upgrade and decarbonisation of the European transport ecosystem and facilitates the modal shift of people and goods from road and air, onto the railway network,” he added.
The investment in Alpha Trains is PGB’s first direct investment in a single private infrastructure company.
“We have had interests in railway companies through infrastructure funds before. But for these investments, the fund managers decided in which companies to invest. This case was different: we decided to invest in this specific company.”
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