Jose Minaya

Nuveen, a leading global investment manager with over $1 trillion of assets under management, has agreed to acquire Glennmont Partners, one of Europe’s largest renewable energy fund managers, to meet increasing global demand for environmentally responsible investments that also aim to provide alternative sources of attractive returns.

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, TIAA.

“Glennmont has a proven track record of investment excellence in one of the most dynamic and fastest growing infrastructure sectors,” said Nuveen CEO Jose Minaya. “The Glennmont team also shares our values and our unwavering commitment to helping investors meet their long-term goals.”

Glennmont is singularly focused on clean energy infrastructure. Since its founding in 2008 by Joost Bergsma, Francesco Cacciabue, Peter Dickson and Scott Lawrence, the firm has provided attractive, risk-managed returns to a range of global institutions including pension funds, insurers, banks and wealth and asset managers across Europe. 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 Glenmont’s investment process, further aligning it with Nuveen’s 50-year heritage of responsible investing.

“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,” says 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% stake in Glennmont.

Glennmont will be Nuveen’s investment centre for clean energy infrastructure and will be integrated within Nuveen’s Real Assets platform, which also serves TIAA, while retaining its independent and proven investment process.

The acquisition 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 takes Nuveen’s private real assets AUM to over $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 over 100 clients in Asia Pacific across a wide range of investors including pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, banks and family offices. The firm offers a wide range of separate accounts and commingled funds to investors across a wide range of liquid and illiquid alternative strategies, including traditional equities and fixed income and private capital as well as real estate and real assets.

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Scott Lawrence, former Managing Director for Parametric Portfolio Associates and principal of his own investment consulting firm, joins Omega in the role of Head of Investment Solutions. Mr Lawrence worked previously in similar roles with Vanguard Investments Australia and other high profile asset management firms.

George Vassos, Omega Managing Director, said Mr Lawrence’s experience and specialist skills honed amongst institutional investor clients speaks to a present and growing opportunity as clients tilt their focus away from off-the-shelf asset solutions.

“The exciting trend is investment co-design formed through direct strategic partnerships,” Mr Vassos said.

“For Omega this means we sit down with any client and look at the full spectrum of outcomes they require from their portfolio. Often clients present existing gaps. This is where Omega will partner to co-design the best solution possible.

“Scott brings strengths in the core disciplines of Australian and International Equities and after tax investing. Myself and the founding partners at Omega look forward to his timely contribution in helping our clients to apply some additional intelligent thinking to their investment needs,” he said.

Mr Lawrence said his work in designing investment strategies to solve complex problems over many years has led him to the single conclusion: investors seek greater control and more focus on their individual requirements.

“Omega is a truly passionate asset management firm addressing this trend. It understands the underlying dynamic within the market where gone are the days of offering a ‘cookie cutter’ investment solution and expecting the client to be content with fewer choices, not more,” Mr Lawrence said.

“I am genuinely passionate about the practical nature of sitting down to solve a client’s needs with an open mind knowing we have unique access to leading edge investments solutions within Omega and a capacity to adapt to deliver to specific outcomes.

Mr Lawrence brings almost 30 years’ industry experience to the role. He earned his Bachelor of Science, Majoring in Pure Mathematics and Mathematics Statistics from the University of Sydney in 1983.

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