Denmark鈥檚 Industriens Pension has bought a significant stake in Finnish district heating and electricity distribution company Etel盲-Savon Energia (ESE) alongside asset manager .
The DKK240bn (鈧�32.2bn) Danish labour-market pension fund said it had signed a final agreement with Abrdn this spring to buy part of the 49% interest the asset manager said in November it was acquiring on on behalf of its European mid-market core infrastructure fund ASCI III.
Abrdn bought the stake from Finnish municipality, Mikkeli, which is retaining the other half of the company.
Industriens Pension said its investment was for a 鈥渟ignificant three-digit million amount鈥� in Danish krone, but declined to be more specific.
A spokesman for Industriens Pension told 91传媒在线 the fund had been negotiating with Abrdn regarding the Finnish investment for quite some time, had bought a large part of the Finnish company and was now a co-owner.
ESE produces district heating for both private households and companies as well as public customers, based on non-fossil energy production - also using waste forestry products, Industriens said.
Jan 脴stergaard, Industriens Pension鈥檚 head of real assets, said: 鈥淚t is an investment that can be expected to deliver an attractive risk-adjusted return, and which supports non-fossil fuel critical energy infrastructure.
鈥淒istrict heating based on organic waste from the forest industry is a sensible and climate-friendly way of producing energy,鈥� he said, adding that it was also an investment which fitted the pension fund鈥檚 portfolio very well.
The Copenhagen-based pension fund said the ESE investment would form part of its now DKK28.6bn infrastructure portfolio, which was spread across renewable energy, utility, digital infrastructure, transport infrastructure and social infrastructure assets.
脴stergaard said it was an 鈥渋nvestment in critical infrastructure with low price and volume uncertainty, inflation protection and low dependence on economic cycles.鈥�
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