Foresight Group (Foresight), a listed infrastructure and private equity manager group, has held the final close of Foresight Energy Infrastructure Partners (FEIP), a sustainability-led energy transition infrastructure fund investing predominantly in Europe.
FEIP has secured total commitments of EUR851.4 million, 70 per cent over the EUR500 million original target. The fund welcomed attracted additional commitments of EUR64 million from existing limited partners and an Italian institutional investor at final close.
Including co-investments to date of EUR170 million, this represents a total capital pool in excess of EUR1 billion for Foresight’s energy transition strategy. Commitments were made by over 35 leading global institutional investors from Europe and North America.
The Fund’s strategy is to invest in opportunities created by the transformational change underway in global energy markets. Foresight is targeting a diversified portfolio of high-quality energy infrastructure assets with strong sustainability characteristics. 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).
The Fund has a strong pipeline of further opportunities in Europe, North America and Australia, leveraging Foresight’s deep investment team resources and its reputation and track record in the sector.
Nigel Aitchison, Foresight’s Head of Infrastructure, says: “FEIP’s fundraising success highlights the attractiveness of its differentiated strategy and investor recognition of the profound importance of sustainability for the investing landscape.”
Dan Wells, Co-Manager of FEIP and Foresight Partner, says: “FEIP is a second-generation clean energy infrastructure fund. We intend to contribute meaningfully to the continued rapid build-out of a reliable, resilient and low-cost decarbonised power system which lies at the heart of the necessary transition of the global economy to a sustainable basis”.
Richard Thompson, Co-Manager of FEIP and Foresight Partner, adds: “The Fund’s strategy is to construct a resilient portfolio of infrastructure investments across renewables, storage and grid, which have complementary characteristics to mitigate risk, driving an enhanced risk adjusted return. With a real focus on renewable enabling infrastructure, the fund has been designed to both optimise the risk-adjusted return and maximise sustainability impact by removing bottlenecks to the energy transition created by the need for more flexibility and connectivity to accommodate the growth in renewables.”
The Fund has made four investments to date, two construction stage onshore wind projects in Sweden and Finland, a portfolio of onshore wind projects in Spain and an energy-from-waste plant in Italy. FEIP’s strategy has been designed to align to the EU Green Taxonomy and each asset acquired by the Fund will also be so certified. Together with alignment to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, this provides investors with greater transparency on the impact credentials of the portfolio and gives assurance that projects are making a genuine contribution to global sustainability targets.
Foresight offers high quality Sustainability and ESG reporting which covers ongoing monitoring of metrics including greenhouse gas reduction and greenhouse gas intensity of invested capital, renewable energy generation, and diversion of waste from landfill.
Foresight has partnered with Worthwhile Capital Partners as Placement Agent for the Nordic region and Astrid Advisors for Europe ex Nordics. Ashurst LLP acted as legal advisor.
