EDHECinfra urges Norwegian government to reconsider exclusion of unlisted infrastructure from GPFG mandate
8 May 2018, Singapore - The concerns invoked to refuse the fund's access to this type of investment are no longer justified.
In an open letter to the Norwegian Finance Minister, EDHEC Infrastructure Institute (EDHECinfra) urges the Norwegian government to reconsider its April 2018 proposal to restrict the mandate of the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) to invest in unlisted infrastructure equity.
EDHECinfra underlines that the very recent creation of transparent unlisted infrastructure equity indices can help address the legitimate concerns about transparency, cost and performance measurement of private equity investing raised by the Ministry.
In the case of unlisted infrastructure, EDHECinfra considers that these concerns are no longer justified. Frederic Blanc-Brude, director, EDHECinfra stresses that "the unlisted infrastructure sector is evolving rapidly to become more transparent and better benchmarked, so that large institutional investors such as GPFG will now be able to approach it on a completely different basis."
EDHECinfra has created and developed the largest database of infrastructure investment data in the world, spanning hundreds of companies over the past two decades. This database will reach global coverage by 2019 and be used to compute fully-fledged market benchmarks reflecting the risk adjusted performance of private infrastructure investments, including in the renewable energy sector.
GPFG said in this most recent proposal that it would consider investment in unlisted infrastructure in the renewable energy sector if the same transparency, return and risk requirements as apply to the other investments in the GPFG could be met and EDHEC Infrastructure Institute considers that the existence of indices that are transparent and accessible to all investors without restriction should lead the Ministry of Finance to reconsider its position.
The open letter to the Norwegian Ministry of Finance can be found here.
Sarah Tame,
Associate Director, Chief Communications Officer
sarah.tame@edhec.edu
Tel. +442073325608
EDHEC Infrastructure Institute-Singapore
One George Street #15-02
Singapore 049145
edhec.infrastructure.institute