Infrastructure and private equity investment manager Foresight Group has held an interim close for Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners (FEIP) with commitments of cEUR430 million. Including co-investments to date, this represents a total capital pool in excess of EUR600 million.
This close sees new investment from Postens Pensionsstiftelse, investment manager of the Swedish National Post Service, and a US-based institutional investor alongside the first close commitments of EUR342 million announced in January 2020. In April this year, Foresight signed advisory agreements with nine co-investors for the acquisition of the 231MW Skaftåsen wind project in Sweden (announced April 2020).
Each asset acquired by the Fund is independently assessed for compliance with the EU Green Taxonomy. Together with reporting on alignment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, this provides investors with greater transparency on the sustainability credentials of the portfolio and gives assurance that projects are making a genuine contribution to global sustainability targets.
Fund managers Dan Wells and Richard Thompson, Partners at Foresight, say: “We are delighted to welcome our new investors. FEIP remains on track to become one of the leading platforms designed specifically to capture opportunities from the evolving energy infrastructure sector in Europe. We believe the sector is poised for significant growth given the well-publicised EU support for green recovery and the accelerating global transition to decentralised, digitised and decarbonised networks.”
Rufus Parkes, Institutional Capital Manager at Foresight, adds: “As investor appetite for sustainability-led strategies continues to grow, our focus remains on the continuing rapid deployment of the Fund into a portfolio of high-quality assets.”
FEIP’s investment strategy has been shaped to achieve specific decarbonisation objectives in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. It aligns with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular with respect to Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7), Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9) and Climate Action (SDG 13).
Foresight offers high quality Sustainability and ESG reporting which covers ongoing monitoring of metrics such as greenhouse gas reduction and greenhouse gas intensity of invested capital, renewable energy generation and diversion of waste from landfill among others.
