In brief: Pension funds back $2bn sustainable infra play

A consortium of institutions, including pensions and endowments, has backed a $2 billion equity raise for US-based Generate Capital, a developer of sustainable infrastructure assets.

Generate is structured as a corporate rather than a fund, but the investors behind the capital raise include many significant private markets players and “many of the world’s largest long-term-oriented pension funds and institutional investors,” the firm said in a statement. Two Australian investors – AustralianSuper and QIC – led the round and were joined by the likes of Sweden’s AP2, RailPen and The Wellcome Trust in the UK. These investors all participated in an earlier $1 billion raise that Generate completed in February this year.

Generate invests balance sheet capital into distributed energy projects like microgrids, community solar and energy storage, as well as resource-efficient projects, such as those relating to wastewater and waste management.

“In infrastructure, stakeholder alignment is extremely challenging when you consider all of the various needs customers, communities, investors, regulators, suppliers and developers have,” said Helena Olin, head of infrastructure and real assets at Swedish national pension AP2. “Generate has pioneered approaches that meet all of those needs, while solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.”