Greencoat secures £277m of pension fund commitments for new private markets fund

Greencoat Capital is launching a new fund, Greencoat Renewable Income LP (GRI), focusing on infrastructure assets for on solar and other renewables.

The GRI – a closed-ended private markets fund – has secured £277 million of commitments from UK pension investors Brunel and SAUL, with c.£130 million of capital allocated to three investments, including a commitment to Greencoat Solar..

The other two investments are shared between the Templeborough biomass power plant and what GRI has lauded as the two largest low carbon greenhouses in the UK.

GRI offers institutional investors the opportunity to invest through a singular vehicle into a diversified portfolio of UK renewable infrastructure assets delivering predictable sterling cashflows with significant inflation protection.

Investments are expected to focus on solar, wind and bioenergy, with selected other green infrastructure opportunities such as renewable heat. GRI is to make investment allocations which will be managed by Greencoat’s teams.

Tatiana Zervos, portfolio manager for GRI at Greencoat Capital, said Greencoat is “delighted” by the positive market response to the fund, which gives institutional investors the benefit of a “’whole of Greencoat effort’ in an efficient and cost-efficient solution”.

Greencoat Captial is an active player in the UK solar market, having acquired BayWa r.e.’s UK solar portfolio in 2017, before acquiring a portfolio of UK solar assets developed by Canadian Solar in 2018. It raised over £1.1 billion in commitments from UK pension funds in the same year, with the company claiming at the time that this established it as the largest dedicated fund making direct investments in operational UK solar farms.

Greencoat solar, meanwhile, acquired 60MW of solar from German asset manager CEE Group in 2019, taking its total installed capacity to over 600MW.

Gillian de Candole, investment principle at Brunel Pension Partnership said Greencoat has a “strong reputation” for investing in and managing renewable assets, with the fund a good fit for both its clients return expectations and Brunel’s partnership-wide commitment to act on climate change.