Dutch pension fund manager APG and South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) have formed a long-term partnership which will enable the firms to pull together their expertise and resources and invest in real assets.

In April, APG and NPS teamed up to buy a majority stake in €3bn Portuguese toll road operator Brisa – Auto-Estradas de Portugal. Last month, NPS invested alongside APG in the Scape Core Fund managed by Australia’s largest student housing operator Scape Australia. 

The €536bn APG and the KRW750trn (€525.3bn) NPS have now formally announced their partnership to invest in large infrastructure and private real estate projects, adding that the Brisa and Scape fund investments are the first two deals of the partnership.

Ronald Wuijster, member of APG group’s executive board, responsible for asset management said: “As a global pension investor, we believe that partnering with institutional, liked minded-investors, can deliver attractive long-term responsible investment returns to our pension fund clients and their beneficiaries.

“With this partnership, clients of both APG and NPS gain access to attractive investment opportunities which would be difficult and more expensive to realise if acting alone. At the same time, we see benefits in exchanging knowledge in this partnership on real assets investment.”

Joon Ahn, CIO at NPS Investment Management said: “To effectively respond to the fast-paced global investment environment, NPS has looked for ways to diversify its deal sourcing channel and reinforce competitiveness in securing investment opportunities in quality real assets.

“As a part of these efforts, NPS wants to cooperate with like-minded long-term institutional partners at a global level. The partnership with APG is a next step to realise this vision, not to mention being an exciting opportunity for both of NPS and APG to expand the scale of global investments.”

Also, NPS will continue to look for partnerships with other large pension funds and sovereign wealth funds going forward, the CIO added.

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here. 

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