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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5th December, 2022
Australian super fund HESTA has boosted its AUM to nearly A$70 billion (US$57 billion) with more than 970,000 members following its merger with the smaller, 60-year-old Brisbane-based Mercy Super fund, which has 13,000 members.
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26th October, 2022
Australian inflation soared to a 32-year high in Q3 amid rising costs of house building and energy prices, and if sustained it could challenge AustralianSuper’s returns targets.
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1st October, 2022
AustralianSuper has become one of the world’s largest public pension funds, and has grown its overseas footprint significantly in the past few months, including its London and New York offices, which it expects to grow to 250 staff. We had the great pleasure of speaking with Damian Moloney, Head of Investments, International, about the activities and prospects of the fund.
12th September, 2022
New Zealand’s sovereign wealth fund, NZ Super, witnessed a -10.7% return in the first half of 2022, according to Global SWF calculations, as the decline in equities wiped NZ$5.6 billion (US$3.4 billion) off its portfolio value.
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15th June, 2022
Two of Canada’s biggest public pension funds have ramped up their investments in the Indian road network, contributing a total of US$816 million to a US$1.2 billion deal to acquire assets from Brookfield.
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2nd May, 2022
Comparing returns across State-Owned Investors is never easy and it always takes a lot of assumptions and disclaimers. Yet, most funds have now reported their FY21 results, and we have looked at the average investment returns for the past six years (which we consider a fair investment cycle) across 20 major SWFs and 20 major PPFs in an apples-to-apples analysis.
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12th March, 2022
Australian public pension funds helped take Sydney Airport private, affirming Global SWF’s analysis that Australian real assets are a hot target for investment despite the challenges facing the aviation sector.
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