London CIV, the asset pooling vehicle for the UK capital’s 32 public pension funds, has received commitments from a further five of its clients for a renewable infrastructure fund.
The additional investment comprised £247.5m (€287m), and comes on top of £435m of seed investment from five other client pension funds.
When London CIV announced the first close in April, it said it expected a further six to commit £300m.
The LCIV Renewable Infrastructure Fund focuses on renewable energy infrastructure assets, investing in greenfield and brownfield assets.
To date London CIV has made investments in funds managed by BlackRock Investment Management, Foresight Group and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners. It has also selected a Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners fund for investment.
Mike O’Donnell, CEO of London CIV, said the renewable infrastructure fund was one of London CIV’s most successful fund launches to date.
“I am pleased to welcome an additional five client funds into this fund,” he said. “It is a product that supports our ongoing commitment to ESG integration and managing climate risks, so it is great to see so many of our client funds investing in sustainable opportunities.”
The announcement of the second close of the LCIV Renewable Infrastructure Fund comes as BlackRock today said that nine UK local government pension schemes (LGPS) had invested a total of $605m in the final fundraise of its Global Renewable Power Fund III (GRP III).
BlackRock announced the final close – at $4.8bn, from over 100 institutional investors – in April.
It had last year disclosed that the City and County of Swansea Pension Fund and North East Scotland Pension Fund were investing in GRP III, joining three other LGPS funds that had committed to the first close in late 2019.
Border to Coast, another asset pooling company, has also invested in GRP III.
In contrast to most UK defined benefit pension schemes, LGPS funds remain open to new members, and as such have a more open-ended time horizon and requirement for exposure to growth and income assets.
“As the pension landscape continues to evolve, the allocation to investments aligned with schemes’ sustainable investing goals is quickly gaining momentum,” said Gavin Lewis, head of UK LGPS at BlackRock.
”For LGPS, higher-yielding growth assets, such as renewable power infrastructure, represent an attractive opportunity aligned with both financial and environmental objectives.”
Since its final close in March this year, GRP III has committed around one third of its capital to onshore wind in Europe, distributed solar generation in the US, and solar and offshore wind in Asia.
