20th March, 2024
Sovereign investors are looking to cash in assets, sensing markets are ripe for divestment. Singapore’s Temasek and GIC are the most active sovereign investors in big ticket sales, which are set to net them billions in returns that will be recycled into new strategies.
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22nd February, 2024
Decarbonization Partners – the partnership formed by BlackRock and Singaporean state investor Temasek – has struck its seventh deal, leading a US$150 million funding round for thermal battery maker Antora Energy.
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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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26th January, 2024
Alberta state-owned investor AIMCo is set to go against the grain on the sustainability agenda with its rumored desire to invest in the Trans Mountain oil pipeline.
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17th January, 2024
Norway’s US$1.5 trillion sovereign wealth fund is adding fourth asset to its unlisted renewable energy portfolio with the acquisition of a 49% stake in onshore solar and wind farms in Spain and Portugal for EUR307 million (US$334 million).
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8th January, 2024
India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Ltd (NIIFL) has a new CEO who promises to heighten the quasi-SWF’s commitment to the South Asian nation’s burgeoning renewables sector.
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20th November, 2023
The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) is boosting the country’s electrification through renewable energy with the establishment of a US$500 million Renewables Investment Platform for Limitless Energy (RIPLE).
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3rd November, 2023
Canadian pension giant CPP Investments has exited two German wind farms with a C$374 million (US$273 million) profit - but it remains committed to renewables as part of its strategy to achieve C$130 billion of transition and green assets by 2030.
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30th October, 2023
Singapore’s GIC is backing a major green ammonia plant in India, being established by the founders of Greenko Group, in which it has a 60% stake.
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4th October, 2023
While India’s billionaire business moguls have attracted billions in capital, India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has proceeded at a slower pace of investment – but the situation looks set to change as the fund develops new partnerships and strategies.
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27th September, 2023
Singapore’s GIC is pumping more capital into technologies and industries dedicated to the transition to net zero with a further US$115 million investment in Hong Kong-based green hydrogen projects developer InterContinental Energy (ICE) that follows the sovereign fund's involvement in a EUR1.5 billion private placement in H2 Green Steel earlier this month.
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14th September, 2023
Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund has won the backing of a Chinese state financial institution to boost Sino-Indonesian co-operation on infrastructure, energy and communications.
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