Investor Weekly
February, 2008 Page: 8
The Macquarie Clean Technology Fund's first fund has invested in wind farms in the United Kingdom, a geothermal facility in California and biofuels in the UK, Canada and North America since it closed in October 2007. The fund closed with about $205 million to invest in renewable energy, wave power, wind energy, biofuels, geothermal energy, water and clean air technology.
Australian superannuation funds have been the biggest supporters of the fund, making up about 60 per cent of the investment. European pension funds comprise around 25 per cent of the fund and United States and Canadian endowment funds and family offices 15 percent. Macquarie Funds Management managing director and clean technology portfolio manager Peter Martenson said he believed many US pension funds had tried to enter the clean tech market on their own by investing in one fund in the space. "Our fund is smartly diversified and it's been seeded," Martenson said.
"People want clean energy and, just as we do with other investments, we look for where there's a strong consumer demand. "We see strong individual demand, company demand, regulatory demand and following all that is the regulators and politicians. "We still have 50 per cent to invest and that will take the next 12-18 months to work out our portfolio "We'll probably look at the area of water and waste water as well as clean air." The fund has been focused on buy-out funds investing in renewable energy and energy technology and to a smaller extent on venture capital and opportunistic funds.
0 comments:
Post a Comment