Skip to main content

UK finance house to invest in renewable energy projects

Following new research from specialist finance house Aurium Capital Markets (Aurium), which reveals that between 2014 and 2015, the number of pension schemes with investments in infrastructure increased by 36 per cent, the company has raised £270 million (US$385.5 million), which includes over £100 million (USS$143 million) from institutional pension funds. It is particularly targeting the pensions sector as it says it is increasing its exposure in infrastructure. Its analysis found 136 pension schemes
February 19, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Following new research from specialist finance house Aurium Capital Markets (Aurium), which reveals that between 2014 and 2015, the number of pension schemes with investments in infrastructure increased by 36 per cent, the company has raised £270 million (US$385.5 million), which includes over £100 million (USS$143 million) from institutional pension funds.

It is particularly targeting the pensions sector as it says it is increasing its exposure in infrastructure.  Its analysis found 136 pension schemes with direct investment in infrastructure projects in 2014, which increased to 185 in 2015.  Those schemes identified as investing in infrastructure last year included Australian Government Future Fund; Canadian Forces Pension Plan, John Lewis Partnership; Pensionskasse Post; Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and The Pension Protection Fund.  
 
According to Aurium Capital Markets partner Steven Blase, the company is seeing more and more pension schemes investing in infrastructure, and it believes green energy projects here are very attractive for them.  Not only do they improve the ‘green’ impact of their portfolios, they can pay an attractive return and there is very little correlation with mainstream asset classes.

Aurium has already helped raise £200 million (US$286 million) to help build and acquire a portfolio of major biomass and Energy from Waste (EfW) plants in the UK, and is looking to raise further funds for more projects in this area.

Related Content

  • September 23, 2014
    Confusing funding and financing can be costly
    Tolling may be the way forward for paying for the roads of the future - but where will concessionaires find the money and do they need funding or financing? Increasingly, governments around the world are concluding that they can no longer pay for new roads and are turning to the private sector for help.
  • December 3, 2012
    ITS projects deliver return on investment
    Light is being shed on where the real return on investment is today – growing, tangible, revenue-generating markets like ITS. There is a great deal of investment going on within the ITS space, and a great deal of external interest in investing in ITS,” says Scott Belcher, President and CEO of ITS America, which has been connecting investors with technology firms ripe for investment. Interested parties include the leading investment banking firm Raymond James. Its managing director, Gary Downing says: “ITS i
  • August 20, 2015
    Promoting cycling is the solution to congestion and pollution
    Cycling offers health, air quality and road space/parking benefits, promoting governments and the EU to look at tax and technology initiatives. David Crawford reports. One way to improve urban air quality is to make green alternatives to car use financially attractive. Incentivising employees to switch their travel-to-work mode to using their own bikes could increase cycling’s modal share of commuting travel by 50%, a recent French research project suggests. The country’s government already subsidises pu
  • February 2, 2012
    Carbon finance delivers critical support to mass transit schemes
    David Crawford investigates carbon finance in transport. World Bank carbon finance grants are delivering critical support to major mass transit deployments in emerging and developing economies. Only recently operative in the transport sector, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM, see panel) is designed to generate additional income streams and improve internal rates of return on projects funded from public- and private-sector sources.