Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has sold its portfolio of onshore wind farms to Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PiP) for an enterprise value of £50 million.
The  portfolio contains all five of the wind farm investments made by the Environmental Capital Fund (ECF), a specialist infrastructure fund managed by SEP. Totalling 64 turbines, the wind farms range from single-turbine sites across the Orkney and Shetland Islands to utility-scale turbines in Curraghderrig, Ireland and the Port of Tilbury in London.
PiP’s existing wind assets include Aura, one of the largest stand-alone Feed in Tariff wind portfolios in the UK, and a minority shareholding in a 550MW 24-site wind portfolio operated and majority owned by EDF.
Commenting on the transaction, Peter Bachmann, a director in SEP’s technology infrastructure team said: “Over the last four years, we have added significant value to the portfolio through active management and a hands-on approach.  We believe this is the appropriate time for our fund to exit and we wish PiP success in the future.”
Joe Davis of PiP said: “PiP is delighted to have acquired this portfolio as it further provides our pension scheme investors with long term, inflation-linked cash flows to be used to help meet their pension obligations.”
SEP sold the Indigo Pipelines gas network in the UK to Arjun Infrastructure Partners in February.

The Environmental Capital Fund (ECF) is an infrastructure fund targeted at UK based energy infrastructure projects – including wind, gas, CHP and district heating schemes.  Formed in 2014, ECF is backed by SSE plc, as well as a syndicate of financial investors led by Lexington Partners and Hermes GPE.

Further reading

Pensions Infrastructure Platform progress report

The New Power Interview: Mike Weston, Chief executive, Pensions Infrastructure Platform