The UK’s Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PiP) has financed a portfolio of UK solar assets.
PiP, working on behalf of one of its founders, RPMI Railpen, said the £20.3m (€24.2m) facility refinanced a portfolio of 1,911 rooftop solar assets owned by Foresight.
Chris Hitchen, chief executive at Railpen, which manages the £24bn Railways Pension Scheme in the UK, said the debt investment would deliver secure, long-term, inflation-linked cash flows.
“As a founding investor of the PiP, we are delighted it has developed the capabilities to effectively source and execute transactions such as this – a key objective of our support for its original establishment,” he said.
Mike Weston, chief executive at the PiP, said: “A UK pension scheme has been able to utilise the platform structure and expertise they helped build at the PiP to access a proprietary infrastructure investment opportunity that is a great fit with their scheme-specific investment strategy.”
The PiP said the deal was similar to an investment made by its Multi-Strategy Infrastructure Fund (MSIF) earlier this year.
The deal in July, its first for its inaugural in-house fund, saw the PiP provide a refinancing package to an unnamed rooftop solar provider.
The MSIF, targeting a £1bn capital raise, had its first close in April, having attracted £125m from the West Midlands Pension Fund, Strathclyde Pension Fund and others.
