The Pension Infrastructure Platform (PIP), a £2 billion ($3.1 billion) fund launched by a group of 10 U.K. pension funds to invest in core infrastructure assets, will begin looking for investment managers. In the past year, the fund has raised £1 billion ($1.5 billion) in soft commitments from U.K. pension funds.
The fund will be issuing RFIs for investment managers on May 13, 2013, and the search will continue through May 31, 2013. Three investment models are being considered for potential managers, including the option to buy, outsourcing the management of some or all of PIP’s assets; the option to build, in which PIP may develop its own in-house fund manager; and a hybrid option, which allows PIP to buy and build.
The founding investors include the British Airways pension schemes, BAE Systems Pension Funds, BT Pension Scheme, Lloyds TSB pension schemes, London Pension Fund Authority, the Pension Protection Fund, the Railways Pension Scheme, Strathclyde Pension Fund and the West Midlands Pension Fund. Each pension fund has expressed an interest in investing £100 million ($155 million) in the fund.