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

  • August 11, 2022
    Is fare-free transit taking us for a ride?
    More cities around the world are trialling fare-free public transit schemes. Do they work and are they sustainable? Andrew Stone puts absolutely no money on his travelcard and jumps on board
  • March 28, 2018
    UK Police cars to trial hydrogen cars in zero emission project
    Cars from the UK's Metropollitan police are set to be among nearly 200 new hydrogen powered vehicles switching to zero emission miles following an £8.8m ($12.4m) project funded by the Department of Transport (DoT). It is designed with the intention of improving access to hydrogen fuelling stations across the country and increasing the number of hydrogen cars on its roads from this Summer. The scheme is run by a consortium led by Element Energy whose members also include ITM Power, Shell, Toyota and
  • September 29, 2017
    Europe spends €112 billion per year on fossil fuels despite Phase-out plans
    The European Governments and EU are subsidising €112 billion each year for the production and consumption of fossil fuels, claims a new report from the Overseas Development Institute and Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe – violating the Paris Agreement’s phase-out plan 2020. The report, Phase-Out 2020: Monitoring Europe’s fossil fuel subsidies (PH20202) gathered the information from 11 European countries between 2014 – 2016.
  • January 23, 2012
    Changing driving conditions need ongoing driver training
    Trevor Ellis, chairman of the ITS UK Enforcement Interest Group, considers the role of ongoing driver training in increasing compliance. It is over 30 years since I passed my driving test. The world was quite a different place then, in that there were only half the vehicles there are now on the UK's roads, mobile phones did not really exist and (in the UK at least) the vast majority of us drove cars which by today's standards exhibited dreadful dynamic stability and were woefully underpowered.