Foresight Group (Foresight), an independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager, has celebrated the three-year anniversary of its FP Foresight UK Infrastructure Income Fund (FIIF).Total return on the three years to 4 December 2020 was 28.14 per cent, outperforming the FTSE All Share by 26.51 per cent (1.63 per cent return from FTSE All Share over same period), during one of the most volatile and unpredictable periods of recent market history. During 2020, the fund has outperformed the FTSE All Share by 7.45 per cent with lower drawdown and volatility, as well as low equity correlation. In each of the first three years of the Fund’s life, FIIF has delivered in excess of its 5 per cent yield objective as well as strong capital performance.
Managed by the award-winning Foresight Capital Management team (“FCM”), the Fund has proven highly resilient during COVID-related lockdowns and disruption, driven by its exposure to real infrastructure assets that provide essential services that enable the economy to function.
With revenues from infrastructure assets for the most part uncorrelated to equity markets and, in many cases, index-linked offering a degree of inflation protection, the Fund is well positioned to benefit from promising developments and innovations in several infrastructure subsectors. Many of the funds and companies which the Fund invests in are actively ramping up expansion into assets such as 5G enabling digital infrastructure, electric vehicle infrastructure, energy transmission and storage. The overall investable universe for the fund is expanding at pace as new companies list in the UK, with increasingly strong government support for ambitious infrastructure investment in the coming years.
Mark Brennan, Lead Fund Manager and Head of Investments at Foresight Capital Management, says: “The income and diversification benefits of infrastructure have been proven over the first 3 years of the Fund’s life, with performance materially outstripping the UK equity market with lower volatility and correlation. As we step into 2021, the opportunity for UK infrastructure investment has rarely looked more positive, with firm Government policy backing progress towards Net Zero as well as more investment in enhanced social and economic infrastructure.”
