4th April, 2025
In a market defined by long-term stability and regulated returns, Australia’s Transgrid has emerged as a crown jewel — and a paradox.
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17th January, 2025
Affordable housing is emerging as a global priority, and state-owned investors (SOIs) are stepping up with bold financial strategies to bridge the gap between supply and demand.
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14th January, 2025
AustralianSuper, Australia's largest superannuation fund with assets exceeding A$355 billion, has taken significant strides to redefine its real estate investment strategy.
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1st January, 2025
In 2024, AustralianSuper continued to lead by example, demonstrating consistent performance, leadership in sustainability, and strategic growth through its overseas offices in New York and London. For its leadership among Australian superannuation funds, for its growing investment activity and for its significant international expansion, Global SWF believes that AustralianSuper is a worthy recipient of the 2024 Fund of the Year award. We were delighted to present it to Damian Moloney, Deputy Chief Investment Officer of the US$ 246 billion fund, and to speak with him about the fund’s recent figures and future ambitions.
17th October, 2024
Data centers have emerged as the top real estate segment for state-owned investors, after AustralianSuper announced a US$1.5 billion investment in US-based DataBank.
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25th July, 2024
Affordable and social housing is emerging as a focus for state-owned investors (SOIs) who see opportunities for real estate asset growth as well as addressing social responsibility in their ESG mandates.
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8th May, 2024
The Australian Retirement Trust (ART) will be investing a larger share of its US$177 billion portfolio in Europe after it opened its first overseas office in London, becoming the latest Australian super fund to channel billions through new London offices.
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20th February, 2024
Indian highways could receive another capital boost from Canada, despite the geopolitical ructions between Delhi and Ottawa, with CDPQ among those expressing interest in acquiring a roads portfolio from India’s quasi-sovereign wealth fund, the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).
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6th February, 2024
A coalition of state-owned investors from across the world has thrown its weight behind Generate Capital in a US$1.5 billion fundraise, which boosted the sustainable infrastructure frontrunner’s funding for new projects and technologies. Existing state-owned investors from Australia, QIC and Australian Super, boosted their existing investments, while new investors included the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) and Australia’s HESTA. The fundraise brings the total raised since 2014 to US$10 billion. It is not unusual for Australian pension funds to co-invest, as well as draw in peers from other countries. The renewables and sustainability sector is notable in seeing a high level of convergence of state-owned investors (SOIs) in transactions. Generate Capital claimed it produced over 320GWh of sustainable power by September 2023. It is heavily concentrated in the US, particularly California, which may have drawn CalSTRS’s interest. Yet, the significant weight of Australian SOIs, acting together, suggests a potential domestic interest. Australia’s green hydrogen sector has already attracted billions of SOI capital and Generate Capital could focus increasingly on Australia’s resources. However, its ethos chimes well with the long-term objectives of a large section of the SOI universe and the platform could see other heavyweight investors pile capital into its projects. Alliances in green energy have been led by Singapore’s GIC while its sister organization Temasek focused on start-ups with new technology to advance renewables, batteries and low carbon industrial processes. Gulf funds also focused both on strategic investment in domestic renewables capacities and on yield-generating assets abroad, with Mubadala leading the way through the Masdar platform as well as directly. The interest in green hydrogen is high, as it could provide the feedstock for ammonia and methanol production and revive the chemicals chain, while being de-linked from the oil and gas sectors. GIC backed a major green ammonia plant in India, partnered with co-investors in Australia’s hydrogen sector, snapped up a stake in InterContinental Energy, and joined Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners in backing a green bond issue by TagEnergy of up to US$ 0.6 billion to fund renewables and battery storage in Australia, the UK and Europe. Bio-based fuels also drew interest, with OTPP committing US$ 0.3 billion to a JV with Sevana Bioenergy to develop renewable natural gas projects utilizing organic waste; and Mubadala’s Acelen using its Mataripe refinery site in Brazil as host to an innovative US$ 2.5 billion push into cleaner aviation fuel from oils derived from soybean, palm and macauba oils. Instead of simply divesting carbon intensive assets, Canadian PPFs have looked to greening them. CPP partnered with IKAV to acquire Aera Energy, which represents 25% of California’s oil and gas production with a view to expanding its renewable energy portfolio. All in all, Sovereign Investors invested, once again, more in the so-called green assets than in the so-called black assets in 2023, reaching a historical maximum of US$ 26.1 billion in the support to companies related to the energy transition, including renewable energy, battery storage and electric vehicles. Gulf SWFs were responsible for almost half of that figure, and are pushing the energy transition agenda and recycling revenues from black assets into green impact investments, particularly in their own backyards. Canadian, European, Singaporean, and Australian funds are also freeing up plenty of dry powder to plunge capital into achieving their net zero ambitions, with the rest of the funds set to join them in co-investments.
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11th September, 2023
Australian Super has made one of the biggest deals in data center investment by any state-owned investor, with its EUR1.5 billion (US$1.6 billion ) investment in Vantage Data Centers.
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11th August, 2023
August is normally a prolific month for appointments and new hires, especially among those funds in the Northern Hemisphere and for those executives with families that need to relocate and find new schools. Here’s an update of what is happening around the human capital of Sovereign Investors:
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8th February, 2023
The first flurry of full-year returns results for sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds shows a large spread of results, but is broadly in line with year-end estimates in Global SWF’s 2023 Annual Report.
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