On Tuesday, Nuveen, the investment arm of the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) with $1 trillion of assets under management, announced that it is acquiring Glennmont Partners, one of Europe’s largest renewable energy fund managers.
London-based Glennmont, which manages over $2 billion in client assets, focuses exclusively on long-term clean energy infrastructure investments in the private market, such as on- and offshore wind farms, biomass power stations, solar parks and small-scale hydro power plants. To date, Glennmont has invested in more than 2GW of mixed renewable energy generation.
The acquisition will enhance Nuveen’s existing private infrastructure platform, which manages almost $3.7 billion across renewable energy, digital, telecoms, transportation and social infrastructure sectors globally, and has delivered consistent investment performance for more than 10 years for the firm and its parent company, TIAA.
“Glennmont has a proven track record of investment excellence in one of the most dynamic and fastest growing infrastructure sectors,” Nuveen CEO Jose Minaya said upon announcing the acquisition. “The Glennmont team also shares our values and our unwavering commitment to helping investors meet their long- term goals.”
Founded in 2008 by Joost Bergsma, Francesco Cacciabue, Peter Dickson and Scott Lawrence, Glennmont has generated returns for an array of global institutional clients including pension funds, insurers, banks and wealth and asset managers. In 2019, Glennmont successfully raised over $1 billion for its third private fund, the largest amount ever raised for a dedicated European-focused clean energy fund at the time. Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) considerations are fundamental to its investment process.
“My co-founders and I are delighted to be entering into this agreement with Nuveen, where we can continue our growth and deliver strong performance for investors from assets across new geographies in the US and Asia, while maintaining our focus on investments in Europe, which remains a key market for us,” said Joost Bergsma, Managing Partner and CEO of Glennmont Partners. “This acquisition will also enable Glennmont to better support the global decarbonisation agenda and help lead the clean energy transition.”
The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2021, subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions, and will see Nuveen take a 100 percent stake in Glennmont.
Glennmont will be Nuveen’s investment center for clean energy infrastructure and will be integrated within Nuveen’s Real Assets platform, which also serves TIAA, while retaining its independent investment process.
Post-acquisition, Nuveen aims to accelerate Glennmont’s growth in 2021 with a suite of new products backed by seed capital from Nuveen and TIAA that will target investment opportunities in European, U.S. and Asian markets across the equity and credit space.
The acquisition will push Nuveen’s private real assets AUM past $150bn, further diversifying the platform offering, which includes real estate, farmland, infrastructure, timberland, agribusiness, and commodities. The platform is grounded by a long-term and sustainable investment philosophy that seeks to offer investors access to alpha-driven strategies that are deployed through a responsible investing lens.
Nuveen collectively serves approximately 400 institutional clients in the EMEA region across a wide range of investor types including pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, banks and family offices.
In September 2020, Nuveen formally joined the investor-led climate activist group Climate Action 100+, and debuted a new portfolio climate risk management program for all asset classes in which it is invested.
