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GLIL celebrates its 10 year anniversary

GLIL Infrastructure was launched in 2015. To celebrate GLIL’s ten years of infrastructure investing in the UK, we have created this video, where our teams talk about the past ten years, the present portfolio and look to the future.

Introduction

GLIL Infra­struc­ture marked its 10-year anniver­sary this May with a pan­el dis­cus­sion at The Soho Hotel in Lon­don, bring­ing togeth­er lead­ers from across the invest­ment, ener­gy and infra­struc­ture sectors.

The event was both a chance to reflect on a decade of long-term col­lab­o­ra­tion and to look ahead towards the evolv­ing role of infra­struc­ture in deliv­er­ing pub­lic val­ue in a fast-chang­ing world, while also cel­e­brat­ing GLIL’s con­tin­ued growth and wel­com­ing poten­tial new investors to join the fund.

Mod­er­at­ed by Louise Jack, Chief Oper­at­ing and Finance Offi­cer at LPPI, the pan­el featured:

  • Pad­dy Dow­dall, Assis­tant Direc­tor, Greater Man­ches­ter Pen­sion Fund (GMPF), and Invest­ment Com­mit­tee Mem­ber, GLIL
  • Nick Elliott, Senior Pol­i­cy & Pub­lic Affairs Man­ag­er, Glob­al Infra­struc­ture Investor Asso­ci­a­tion (GIIA)
  • Dr. Nina Sko­rup­s­ka, Non-Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Great British Energy
  • Jonathan Ord, Head of Invest­ment, GLIL, and Invest­ment Com­mit­tee Mem­ber, GLIL

Built by pension funds, for pension funds

In line with the occa­sion, the dis­cus­sion opened with reflec­tions on GLIL’s found­ing in 2015.

Pad­dy Dow­dall, one of the initiative’s orig­i­nal archi­tects, described the ear­ly 2010s as a piv­otal moment for UK pen­sion funds. He explained there was grow­ing recog­ni­tion across the sec­tor of the need for bet­ter access to long-term, pro­duc­tive invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties – par­tic­u­lar­ly in infra­struc­ture. Polit­i­cal momen­tum was also build­ing at that time, with the Trea­sury under then-Chan­cel­lor George Osborne active­ly encour­ag­ing pen­sion funds to play a greater role in sup­port­ing nation­al infra­struc­ture development.

Yet the mar­ket offer­ings at the time didn’t ful­ly align with the needs of long-term investors. Hav­ing worked for a pen­sion fund for a long time and invest­ing in infra­struc­ture funds, there was a frus­tra­tion with some of the options avail­able,” Dow­dall recalled. Many tra­di­tion­al infra­struc­ture funds were rel­a­tive­ly cost­ly, short-term in nature and offered lim­it­ed con­trol to investors, with struc­tures that often pri­ori­tised inter­me­di­aries over beneficiaries.

This, cou­pled with grow­ing calls for cost trans­paren­cy and val­ue for mon­ey, helped catal­yse the cre­ation of GLIL: a cost-effec­tive1, long-term invest­ment fund designed to align insti­tu­tion­al cap­i­tal with long-term pub­lic outcomes.

Investment trends

As GLIL enters its sec­ond decade, the broad­er infra­struc­ture land­scape is also at an inflec­tion point. Across the UK, the scale and urgency of invest­ment required to meet long-term devel­op­ment and decar­bon­i­sa­tion goals is becom­ing increas­ing­ly clear. Recent esti­mates from the Nation­al Infra­struc­ture Com­mis­sion sug­gest that between £70 – 80 bil­lion will be need­ed annu­al­ly – a step change in ambi­tion that brings both chal­lenge and opportunity.

Against this back­drop, the pan­el reflect­ed on how the mar­ket has evolved over the past ten years – and what it will take for long-term investors to con­tin­ue play­ing a mean­ing­ful role in shap­ing the UK’s infra­struc­ture future.

Responding to economic shocks

Over the past decade, infra­struc­ture invest­ment has had to nav­i­gate a tur­bu­lent macro­eco­nom­ic backdrop.

Dow­dall reflect­ed on the ear­ly 2010s, when ultra-low inter­est rates sparked fierce com­pe­ti­tion for yield-gen­er­at­ing assets. That dynam­ic has since been upend­ed by major glob­al and domes­tic shocks that have reshaped inter­est rates and the bal­ance between debt and equi­ty returns.

The rise – and lim­its – of renew­able energy

Through all of these mar­ket shifts, one con­sis­tent focus for GLIL has been renew­able ener­gy. While not a ded­i­cat­ed green fund, the plat­form has steadi­ly increased its expo­sure to renew­ables. Jonathan Ord not­ed that, as of 2025, 30 – 35% of the port­fo­lio is in the sector.

GLIL’s approach to renew­ables has also evolved. The fund has devel­oped more con­fi­dence in tak­ing on con­struc­tion-phase risk, as seen in its back­ing of Lyceum Solar – a solar busi­ness built in part­ner­ship from the ground up – that now pow­ers approx­i­mate­ly 125,000 homes2. It’s also invest­ed in Rath­cool, a port­fo­lio of 11 oper­a­tional onshore wind farms in Ire­land, with more oppor­tu­ni­ties on the radar.

This empha­sis reflects wider mar­ket momen­tum. Dr Nina Sko­rup­s­ka not­ed that over 50% of UK elec­tric­i­ty now comes from renew­able sources, large­ly thanks to sus­tained gov­ern­ment sup­port for off­shore wind. But she warned that the ener­gy tran­si­tion is lag­ging in oth­er sec­tors such as heat­ing and trans­port. GLIL’s lead­er­ship in renew­ables was praised as an exam­ple of how pen­sion funds can dri­ve progress.

Barriers to innovation

Despite suc­cess with mature tech­nolo­gies, pan­el­lists were can­did about the sys­temic bar­ri­ers fac­ing new­er ones. Sko­rup­s­ka point­ed to chal­lenges fac­ing green hydro­gen, car­bon cap­ture and stor­age (CCS) and elec­trol­y­sers, which con­tin­ue to face reg­u­la­to­ry and mar­ket hur­dles that hin­der innovation.

She sug­gest­ed that pub­lic bod­ies like GB Ener­gy – formed under the UK Government’s 2030 agen­da – could play a role in facil­i­tat­ing progress, par­tic­u­lar­ly by address­ing issues such as grid capac­i­ty, plan­ning delays and sup­ply chain con­straints while de-risk­ing ear­ly stage projects. How­ev­er, she not­ed that real momen­tum will come from effec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion across pub­lic and pri­vate sectors.

Elliott echoed this sen­ti­ment, stress­ing the impor­tance of coor­di­nat­ed action between gov­ern­ment, pub­lic bod­ies and long-term investors. Rather than pub­lic insti­tu­tions work­ing in iso­la­tion, he argued, it’s about cre­at­ing the con­di­tions where ini­tia­tives like GLIL – and the broad­er UK pen­sions indus­try – can chan­nel cap­i­tal into the tech­nolo­gies and infra­struc­ture need­ed for the future. 

Public-private collaboration

Final­ly, the pan­el con­sid­ered the shift­ing role of pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships (PPPs). Elliott not­ed a recent change in tone from gov­ern­ment, with increas­ing will­ing­ness to revis­it PPPs in a mod­ernised form.

If designed effec­tive­ly, he argued, such mod­els could unlock a steady pipeline of investable projects – par­tic­u­lar­ly if backed by sta­ble pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works. The UK pio­neered the PPP mod­el,” he said. The rest of the world has caught up and are now imple­ment­ing it in a real­ly suc­cess­ful way. If you look in Europe, or even in the US as well, there is a view that the UK is miss­ing out.” 

Looking ahead

The future of UK infrastructure

Look­ing to the future, the pan­el agreed on the scale and urgency of the UK’s infra­struc­ture needs.

Nick Elliott expressed cau­tious opti­mism about a forth­com­ing 10-year strat­e­gy expect­ed in June, describ­ing it as a chance to pro­vide investors with the sta­ble pol­i­cy envi­ron­ment and pipeline they need to be suc­cess­ful. If gov­ern­ment can get that right,” he said, we’re going to have some­thing that us at GIIA, and the wider investor com­mu­ni­ty, have been call­ing for for a long time – which is a long-term join-up between deliv­ery, pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tion when it comes to infrastructure.”

Elliott also argued that the UK must update its pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship mod­el to keep pace with oth­er coun­tries. With the right bal­ance of risk and reward, mod­ernised PPPs could unlock more investable projects and help restore investor con­fi­dence in delivery.

Dr Nina Sko­rup­s­ka high­light­ed the sup­port­ing role of GB Ener­gy and the Nation­al Wealth Fund in de-risk­ing ear­ly-stage tech­nolo­gies such as tidal, deep geot­her­mal and float­ing off­shore wind. Both she and Elliott agreed these insti­tu­tions must help crowd invest­ment in, rather than com­pete with pri­vate cap­i­tal. This res­onates with GLIL’s com­mit­ment to mobil­is­ing long-term, pre­dom­i­nant­ly UK-based cap­i­tal into infra­struc­ture, rein­forc­ing the impor­tance of align­ing pub­lic ini­tia­tives with insti­tu­tion­al invest­ment to unlock sus­tain­able growth.

What’s next for GLIL

For GLIL, the next phase builds on 10 years of pur­pose-led, long-term investment.

Jonathan Ord reaf­firmed the fund’s com­mit­ment to renew­ables as well as its grow­ing con­fi­dence in ear­li­er-stage, con­struc­tion-phase invest­ments. These ini­tia­tives align with gov­ern­ment objec­tives to stim­u­late UK growth and deliv­er new infra­struc­ture, as exem­pli­fied by projects like Lyceum Solar, which show­cas­es GLIL’s capac­i­ty to both cre­ate and acquire assets.

Look­ing for­ward, GLIL aims to scale its impact across both mature and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. Ord point­ed to plan­ning and grid access as key enablers of future growth, along­side con­tin­ued align­ment between com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty and pub­lic value.

GLIL’s found­ing struc­ture – cre­at­ed by pen­sion funds, for pen­sion funds – remains cen­tral to its abil­i­ty to deliv­er this. With strong gov­er­nance and a col­lab­o­ra­tive ethos, the plat­form is well-posi­tioned to con­tin­ue con­nect­ing insti­tu­tion­al cap­i­tal with nation­al priorities.

After a decade of proven returns and pub­lic val­ue, GLIL offers a blue­print for how patient, pur­pose-dri­ven invest­ment can shape the UK’s infra­struc­ture future.