Local government pension schemes (LGPS) invested in the GLIL Infrastructure platform have committed an additional £550m investment to the cross-pool collaboration.
The GLIL Infrastructure platform now holds £1.8bn in assets on behalf of the Northern Pool, the Local Pensions Partnership and the London Pension Funds Authority. It is the only cross-pool infrastructure investment collaboration between the eight LGPS pension pools.
“By increasing our scale in this way, we not only are better able to work alongside some of the most sophisticated infrastructure investors in the world, we also have greater access to the widest pool of available investments at the best possible price,” said Ian Greenwood, chair of the Northern Pool.
Bolstering investments in infrastructure was one of the key incentives behind the initial LGPS pooling process as policy makers hoped the economies of scale achieved through pooling could improve access to the asset class.
Yet the illiquid nature of many infrastructure assets combined with the fact that the authorised contractual scheme fund structure chosen by many pools does not apply to alternative assets and so have remained obstacles to pooling infrastructure.
Another challenge for large scale infrastructure investments are opportunities to source assets. The £1.8bn GLIL fund has £900m invested in greenfield sites, regulated utilities and transport upgrades. It also holds minority stakes in Anglian Water, the Clyde windfarm project and social infrastructure company Semperian.
The platform, which is structured as an alternative investment fund makes key decisions through its investment committee, which currently includes representatives of the Northern Pool and LPP as the largest investors in the platform.
