The Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PiP) has helped to refinance a portfolio of 1,911 rooftop solar assets to provide £20.3million of inflation linked to debt capital for the Railways Pension Scheme.

PiP is the infrastructure investment business that has been developed by pension schemes, for pension schemes and offers options outside of the traditional asset management sector.

The solar assets transaction, on behalf of RPMI Railpen, is a good example of how pension schemes can leverage PiP.

Mike Weston, PiP chief Executive PiP, said: "A UK pension scheme has been able to utilise the platform structure, and expertise they helped build at PiP, to access a proprietory infrastructure investment opportunity that is a great fit with their scheme specific investment strategy."

"This is a real example of the power of the PiP platform."

The rooftop assets are located across England and Wales and the financing is repayable over 19.5 years.

Chris Hitchen, RPMI Railpen CEO, said: "This debt investment will deliver exactly the secure, long term, inflation-linked cash flows that will help us achieve our mission to pay members' pensions securely, affordably and sustainably.

"As a founding investor of PiP we are delighted it has developed the capabilities to effectively source and execute transactions such as this – a key objective of our support for its original establishment."

Novatio Capital Limited, trading as The Renewable Financing Company, acted as the Arranger of the Loan Facility.

Justin May, executive director, Novatio Capital Limited, said: "We are delighted to have worked with PiP again.

"All parties in this transaction have been able to benefit from the experience gained from working together on a previous transaction we executed this summer."

The PiP MSIF invests across the capital structure directly into UK infrastructure targeting housing, social infrastructure (hospitals, schools, flood defences etc.), communications, utilities, (renewable) energy and transport.

It is open to all UK pension schemes and has a low minimum investment hurdle to allow smaller schemes to participate and achieve similar scale benefits as larger schemes.

First published 15.12.2016

Lindsay.sharman@wilmingtonplc.com