Railpen, the £34 billion investment manager for the UK railways pension schemes, has promoted Lewis Vanstone to head of infrastructure.
Vanstone, who joined Railpen in 2019, has been instrumental in expanding the firm’s infrastructure portfolio across renewable energy, energy storage, waste management, healthcare facilities and other essential projects, shared Railpen. His leadership has marked a shift from “shift from core assets into higher-returning, earlier-stage growth infrastructure,” it added.
The investor has been steadily increasing its allocation to infrastructure, citing the asset class’s resilient cash flows, inflation protection and long-duration profile as closely aligned with pension liabilities.
Lewis will lead Railpen’s infrastructure team as it grows its renewable energy and essential services portfolio, building on partnerships with AGR Power and Constantine Energy Storage while pursuing new opportunities to support the low-carbon transition.
Railpen’s green investment focus
Anna Rule, director of real assets and private markets, commented: “We are delighted to appoint Lewis, whose leadership and deep industry expertise will be invaluable as we continue to grow and diversify our infrastructure portfolio. This appointment reflects our belief in the importance of the asset class – not only in delivering secure and sustainable outcomes for our members – but with wider-reaching environmental, societal and economic benefits.”
Lewis Vanstone, head of infrastructure, added: “It is a privilege to take on this role at such an exciting time for Railpen’s infrastructure strategy. The opportunities within the asset class are broad and reach beyond Railpen’s current asset mix, considering waste, zero-emission transport and digital infrastructure, as well as renewable energy and social infrastructure. My aims within this role are to build upon our well-established infrastructure capability, diversify our infrastructure holdings, further develop our co-investment approach, and ultimately deliver resilient infrastructure returns to secure our members’ future.”
