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

  • April 25, 2013
    Diverse development of tolling business models
    A diversity of tolling business models offers a wider toolbox of highway finance options, as the IBTTA’s Patrick Jones explains. The business models for America’s tolled highways have gone through several different evolutions over the last 75 years, reflecting a succession of shifts in transportation policy and politics, financing and funding models, urban patterns, customer needs, and technology. And with more and more decision-makers expressing renewed interest in tolling, it’s that very diversity that ma
  • February 27, 2012
    Good money after bad
    Fundamentally, as human beings, we tend to want much the same things
  • March 17, 2016
    ‘Free’ power for signs, shelters and so much more
    David Crawford looks at the sunny side of the street. Solar power has been relatively slow in entering the transport sector, but a current blossoming of activity bodes well for the large-scale harnessing of an alternative energy that is zero-emission at source and, in practical terms, infinitely renewable. Traffic management and traveller information systems, and actual vehicles, are all emerging as areas for deployment. Meanwhile roads themselves are being viewed as new-style, fossil fuel-free ‘power stati
  • January 19, 2012
    Safer roads need safe systems approach, better infrastructure
    Some developed countries are far from leading the way when it comes to making road infrastructure safe. In fact, says the Road Safety Foundation's Joanne Hill, they learn a lot from what is happening in emergent nations. A new report from the Road Safety Foundation, 'Saving Lives, Saving Money - the costs and benefits of achieving safe roads', makes some startling assertions about attitudes to road safety. Although concerned predominantly with the UK, there are some universal lessons to be learned, accordin