Australian pension scheme gears up for £23bn UK investment spree
Australia’s largest pension scheme has outlined plans to pump £23bn into the UK and Europe over the next five years as it looks to double the value of its UK assets.
AustralianSuper, which manages A$244bn (£128Bn) for around 2.5m savers, says it plans to ramp up its UK asset value from £7bbn to more than £15bn by 2026 with investment in real estate, infrastructure and private credit, the Financial Times reported.
The fund currently has stakes in developments in UK assets such as Heathrow airport and Kings’ Cross redevelopment projects but Damian Moloney, AustralianSuper’s head of international investments, told the FT that the fund saw international opportunities in private markets.
He said: “We are looking at a variety of opportunities for high-quality sustainable mixed-use real estate investments that are or can be carbon neutral.
“(There are also) numerous infrastructure opportunities in the UK and Europe, driven by a need for asset renewal and new builds, such as digital infrastructure,” he added.
Moloney said that the fund’s experience to date in the UK had been “very positive”, due to the “deep pools of high-quality talent, a stable and reliable legal and regulatory environment and many like-minded partners.”
AustralianSuper’s plans are the latest in a spate of foreign pension funds to push into the UK, with Canadian fund Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (CDPQ), outlining a C$15bn (£9bn) spending push on private assets in the UK and Europe, and C$227bn Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan also unveiled a C$70bn (£40bn) push into international private markets.