Dutch pension manager APG has extended its partnership with Aberdeen Asset Management to take on a portfolio of 16 infrastructure assets.
APG—which runs €386 billion on behalf of Dutch pension funds—and Aberdeen have taken on the portfolio from DIF, a Netherlands-based infrastructure specialist. The assets acquired cover the health, education, sports, and accommodation sectors, and are based across Europe and the UK.
Ron Boots, head of European infrastructure at APG, said public-private partnership assets were “at the core of APG’s infrastructure strategy due to their proven robustness and long-term high cash flow visibility”.
Neither APG nor Aberdeen revealed the value of the portfolio, but Boots said it was “sizeable and high quality”.
Partnerships between pension funds and asset managers are growing in popularity. In September, the New York state pension system signed a strategic partnership deal with Goldman Sachs Asset Management to manage $2 billion (€1.6 billion) worth of global equity strategies. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System agreed a similar deal with UBS Global Asset Management in August, forming a $500 million infrastructure investment partnership.
In a separate deal, Aberdeen has sold a portfolio of property assets to two Danish pensions, Industriens Pension and ATP. The portfolio has been split equally between the two funds, and was valued at DKr515 million (€69 million) in a statement on Industriens Pension’s website.
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