Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds are in talks to form a “super-consortium” to bid for a majority stake in National Grid’s gas distribution arm, valued at up to £11bn. Wren House, the infrastructure arm of the Kuwait Investment Authority, and the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), one of Britain’s biggest pension funds, are understood to be eyeing the stake that National Grid announced it would sell last November. National Grid’s distribution arm is a key piece of infrastructure covering the Midlands, the North West and eastern England, as well as north London, and supplies 10.9m gas customers. National Grid Transco, as the FTSE 100 company used to be called, sold half of its distribution networks 12 years ago. During this sell-off, OTPP and Borealis teamed up with SSE to buy networks in the South and Scotland.
Telegraph 21st Feb 2016 read more »