Border to Coast has made the first investment from its UK-dedicated investment portfolio launched earlier this year, while ACCESS has reached £50bn in pooled assets.
Border to Coast Pension Partnership has allocated £48.5m to a UK clean energy fund on behalf of its partner funds.
The investment is the first within the pool’s UK Opportunities portfolio, which it launched earlier this year with the intention of putting £500m to work in UK productive assets.
The pool has backed the Capital Dynamics Clean Energy UK Fund, which has already invested in four wind farms in Scotland. Once operational the farms are expected to deliver enough energy to the UK grid to power more than 46,000 homes.
The fund will invest primarily in solar and wind power assets as well as battery storage, Border to Coast said in a statement.
Joe McDonnell, Border to Coast’s chief investment officer, said: “From the outset we said our UK Opportunities proposition would focus on adding value through financing the build of new infrastructure and our first commitment on behalf of partner funds delivers just that.
“Capital Dynamics offers not only a strong investment opportunity, but also the ability to have a tangible impact on the future pipeline of renewable energy infrastructure that the UK sorely needs if it is to reduce its reliance on oil and gas and meet net zero goals.”
As well as renewable energy, the UK Opportunities portfolio targets investment in housing, transport and growth finance across the UK. Border to Coast received a Pensions Expert Investment Innovation Award for the strategy in May.
ACCESS hits £50bn in assets
Meanwhile, the ACCESS pool has reached £50bn in pooled assets across its 11 partner LGPS funds.
The pool was boosted by recent market movements, it said in a statement, but also by commitments to private market assets such as real estate and infrastructure in the past few months.
ACCESS said the £50bn mark was reached through a £1.8bn total commitment to two new infrastructure funds managed by IFM Investors and JPMorgan Asset Management.
It expects to award private equity and private debt mandates by the end of the year, according to a statement.
ACCESS’s platform now houses more than 75% of all assets from the pool’s partner funds.
In a statement, ACCESS highlighted evidence of delivering value for money for partner funds and scheme members through its pooled approach. The pool’s active listed assets have recorded a five-year return of just over 9%, compared to a benchmark of 7.8%.
The pool also cited a cost assessment carried out by ClearGlass that it said demonstrated ACCESS was delivering economies of scale across active and passive listed mandates.
Chris Sier, founder of ClearGlass, said: “Once again the ACCESS pool has shown the effectiveness of its procurement model by achieving over £49mn of fee savings (17 basis points) for its partner funds.”
Kevin McDonald, director of the ACCESS Support Unit, said the progress the pool had made was “exceptional”.
“Importantly, the pool has demonstrated excellent value for money, delivering an enhanced level of savings, combined with investment outperformance and asset class coverage,” he said.
“Looking ahead, ACCESS is well placed to continue to develop the pool and progress will continue.”
