Ancala deploys over €600m in critical infrastructure companies in record year

New investments include Europe’s largest aerial emergency services operator Avincis and Norway’s leading supply base, Fjord Base. The infrastructure manager also provided significant follow-on funding to its portfolio companies including Portsmouth Water, to begin construction of the UK’s first major reservoir since the 1980s, and Biogen, a leading anaerobic digestion plant operator, to acquire five new green-gas plants.

Ancala’s proactive approach to value creation led its portfolio companies to grow revenues by an average of 7% in 2023, significantly outperforming European economic growth that year. Its portfolio firms also increased headcount by an average of 15% during the same period.¹

In the past twelve months, Ancala has closed two funds. Its third flagship co-mingled infrastructure fund, Ancala’s largest ever individual fundraise, closed with a total of €1.4bn in commitments, surpassing its €1.2bn target. The infrastructure manager’s Growth Fund, a new vehicle created to enable the growth plans of Portsmouth Water, last-mile network operator Leep Utilities and Biogen specifically, was oversubscribed and closed with £551m of commitments.

To help deliver on its plans to invest in more critical infrastructure companies, Ancala has increased its headcount by more than 20% since March 2023. In addition, Allison Williams and Alex Agar have recently been promoted to Associate in Ancala’s Investment Team and Asset Management Team respectively, while Souvharnam Chetty has been promoted to Senior Fund Operations Manager. Ancala has also added Monica Fan-Bradley to the team as Head of Investor Relations to further enhance its client service. Monica joined Ancala from Aviva Investors where she was global head of institutional distribution.

Spence Clunie, Managing Partner, Ancala, commented:

“Ancala is committed to creating value within critical infrastructure companies for the benefit of all stakeholders. The performance of our portfolio and the growth of our own firm is testament to our proven strategy to deliver infrastructure investment differently.

“Building on the momentum of 2023, we are actively looking for new opportunities to invest in and to apply our proactive and collaborative approach to create sustainable value.”

Ancala has a long track record for enabling growth and contributing to a more sustainable future. To date, it has provided more than 40% of the initial investment capital in follow-on funding to enable its portfolio firms to grow organically and through acquisition. On average, its portfolio firms have grown revenues by more than 65% since the leading infrastructure manager first invested.¹ The firm recently received top ratings for its approach to sustainability in its 2023 UNPRI sustainability assessment.

Ancala currently has total AUM of more than €4.1bn and manages 18 assets operating in essential infrastructure sectors including renewable energy and energy transition, transport, utilities and the circular economy.

References

1 – Data as of end of 2023.