Nuveen Infrastructure has announced a £1.1 billion (US$1.4 billion) significant risk transfer (SRT) in debt related to UK energy transition projects. The SRT, held with UK bank NatWest, covers loans to more than 35 projects including solar and wind farms, energy from waste, bioenergy, hydro and smart meters. The projects are located across eight European countries. SRTs allow banks to offload a portion of their loan book to third parties, enabling the former to meet capital adequacy requirements. Nuveen’s SRT, held through the Energy Transition Enhanced Credit II strategy (ETEC II), is the fourth of its kind for the £33.5 billion infrastructure investment specialist – and its third linked to energy transition loans. “Our investors will now benefit from over 200 loans across a broad range of European energy transition infrastructure projects,” said Claudio Vescovo, Managing Director and Head of European Energy Transition Credit Funds at Nuveen Infrastructure. “We believe now is a strong opportunity for investing in energy transition credit. The strategy benefits from the current interest rate environment as well, as the first-mover advantage we have built on certain investment tools like SRTs.”
