GLIL Infrastructure, the fund backed by a number of UK local government pension schemes (LGPS), has raised a further £500m (€546m) from its members.
GLIL said the additional capital commitment, received from Northern LGPS and Local Pensions Partnership takes the open-ended fund’s total capital to £2.32bn, of which it has deployed £1.4bn into the infrastructure sector across ten assets.
Northern LGPS members, include the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, Merseyside Pension Fund and West Yorkshire Pension Fund. The Lancashire County Pension Fund, Royal County of Berkshire Pension Fund and London Pensions Fund Authority form Local Pensions Partnership.
The GLIL fund was established in 2015 to drive direct investment in core UK infrastructure and support the long-term objectives of pension funds and local authority pooling. The fund’s investments include stakes in Anglian Water, Clyde Windfarm, Forth Ports, two fleets of trains with Rock Rail, a portfolio of public-private partnership assets and investments in biomass and anaerobic digestion energy generation. It also recently bought a 30% stake in UK rolling stock fleet Agility Trains East.
Ted Frith, COO at GLIL Infrastructure, said: “The commitment from our members is testament to their faith in infrastructure as an asset class, but also our proposition and investment strategy that has seen us deploy capital into some of the country’s most critical infrastructure – from rail and renewable energy to utilities and ports.
“As the economic and social benefits of infrastructure investment are better understood, we expect to see more pension funds drive capital into the sector.
“Not least in the current climate, funds are looking to match their long-term liabilities with sustainable and cost-effective assets that can provide reliable returns for pension members for many years to come.”
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