John Laing team on the move – Environmental Assets little affected.
The board of John Laing Environmental Assets Group has announced a change of investment adviser – from John Laing Capital Management (“JLCM”) to Foresight Group CI Limited, which is expected to be effective from 1 July 2019.
Increased resources, same fees
John Laing Group plc is selling JLCM’s investment advisory business relating to JLEN to Foresight. The team at JLCM (including Chris Tanner and Chris Holmes), which has provided investment advisory services to JLEN since JLEN’s IPO in 2014, will be transferred to Foresight following completion of a TUPE process with affected employees, subject to regulatory notification. The same team will continue to advise the company, supported by the wider resources of Foresight. Under the terms of the sale, the current investment advisory agreement will be novated, restated and amended on the effective date of the transfer. The material terms, fees and provisions of the new investment advisory agreement are the same as the existing investment advisory agreement with JLCM.
Foresight is a leading independent infrastructure and private equity investment manager which has been managing investment funds on behalf of institutions and retail clients for more than 30 years. Following this deal, Foresight will have GBP4 billion of assets under management across a number of institutional and UK retail funds. It is a leading renewables infrastructure investor and has a management team numbering over 90 professionals in five international offices. After the transaction, it will have over GBP3 billion of energy infrastructure assets under management and will be manager of 170 renewable generation assets globally, with a total generating capacity of close to 2GW. The Board of JLEN believes Foresight represents a highly synergistic fit for the fund as it focuses on growing its portfolio of environmental infrastructure assets.
First Offer Agreement remains in force
The first offer agreement that JLEN has with John Laing Limited (see our notes for more detail) will continue following the transfer of the business to Foresight. The agreement will be amended from the effective date of the transfer to reflect the change in investment adviser to Foresight, and to include certain additional rights of termination on a change of control of Foresight or JLEN.
Name change coming
The board expects to put forward a resolution to shareholders to change the name of the company, so that it does not include “John Laing”, in due course.
JLEN : John Laing team on the move – Environmental Assets little affected