Greater Manchester Pension Fund is the first local government pension scheme to make a direct and active investment into a UK-wide science, tech and innovation specialist property platform.
The deal demonstrates the role that such funds can play in regenerating the UK’s towns and cities; helping to create highly-skilled jobs, increase productivity and drive wage growth, while supporting the UK’s target to become a global science and technology superpower by 2030.
Bruntwood SciTech is the UK’s leading specialist property provider, founded by Legal & General and Bruntwood in 2018 to support the growth of the life science and tech sectors.
Bruntwood SciTech aims to create a £5 billion UK-wide portfolio that can support 2,600 high-growth businesses by 2032. £500 million of new equity sees GMPF inject £150 million, alongside a significant increase in investment from existing shareholders, Legal & General and Bruntwood, through cash and asset transfer.
The new capital will be used to expand and redevelop existing science and technology campuses and city centre innovation hubs, delivering much-needed additional world-leading lab and office space in Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow and Cambridge, across a secured 3.6m sq ft development pipeline. The investment will also enable Bruntwood SciTech to enter additional R&D intensive regional cities.
Cllr Gerald Cooney, Chair of the GMPF said: 'We have long admired Bruntwood SciTech and seen its impact on our doorstep in Manchester, not least in leveraging the strength of its universities to create innovation districts with a genuine global reputation that are capable of attracting companies like Roku and Qiagen to the city.
'We’re investing from society for society by deploying our capital to benefit the UK’s regional economies for the long-term, helping develop the innovation infrastructure they need in order to scale in world-leading workspaces and supporting them to attract the best, and most highly skilled talent, enter new markets, and be supported in accessing new funds.
'We’re excited about how we can now help to bring forward Bruntwood SciTech’s pipeline of transformational, world-class developments and for a future in which we spread its impact even more so in its existing cities, and into new ones.'
GMPF was selected following a competitive process for new equity funding partners that saw active discussions with UK and global institutional investors.
For more information about Bruntwood SciTech, please visit their website.