Today, DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) publishes its ESG report “Our path to Net Zero” outlining its ambitions and contributions to ESG and climate change over the last year. We are proud to report significant continuing progress since we reached A+ UNPRI scores for our ESG approach last year. Over the years DIF has successfully embedded ESG in its investment principles, policies and processes.

Sustainable management of our investments

ESG improvements remain a corporate priority and active engagement with our investments is key to our success. ESG is considered in all stages of the investment cycle, from initial ESG screening during the investment phase to annual ESG actions plans. Our focus is on five areas which we see as most relevant to the sustainable management of investments: Governance, Safety, Environment, Human Capital & Community and Climate Resilience.

We have realized significant performance improvements across these five core ESG areas by creating individual plans for each investment and by closely monitoring progress. This included among others the implementation of higher safety standards, increased investments in local communities and enhanced management of climate risk.

In addition, we outline the positive contribution of our portfolio to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the intrinsic public benefit of these investments.

A huge step forward is our decision in 2021 to commit ourselves to become a Net Zero investment manager – in line with the global effort to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.

Looking ahead

Core to our business is an appreciation of the strong connection between our investments, their users and our own employees. That’s why we pride ourselves in taking care of our own people and communities, in “walking the talk” on the environment and promoting diversity and equality of opportunity.

The decisions made during COP26 Glasgow indicate that global leaders are aware of the fact that now is the time to act to stop global warming. DIF will continue its focus on a net zero future and increase its sustainability efforts across its portfolio and the organization. This is how DIF contributes to ensure a safer and energy efficient world that is focused on a positive impact on local communities.

More information on the progress made on the DIF Path to Net Zero and contributions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals can be read by downloading the DIF ESG Report 2021.  

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent investment manager, with more than €9.0 billion in assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF invests in infrastructure companies and assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy transition, and transportation sectors.
• Traditional DIF funds, of which DIF Infrastructure Fund VI is the latest vintage, target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships, concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 170 professionals, based in ten offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, New York, Paris, Santiago, Sydney, and Toronto. For more information please visit www.dif.eu.

Contact:

Allard Ruijs, IR & BD
Email: a.ruijs@dif.eu

DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) today announces two significant successions in its senior leadership team:

• Based in London, Caine Bouwmeester will take over the role as Head of Renewable Energy from Christopher Mansfield; and
• In Frankfurt, Marcel Beverungen will take over the position as Head of Germany from Carl Jobst von Hoersten.

Christopher Mansfield and Carl Jobst von Hoersten are both retiring as Partners after 13 years in their roles as Head of Renewable Energy and Head of Germany, respectively. Christopher has led DIF’s renewables practice from its start in 2008, having overseen more than 70 investments and/or realisations across 4 continents, with an installed capacity of over 4GW, establishing DIF as a leading global player in renewables.

Carl Jobst founded the Frankfurt office in 2008 and has successfully developed DIF’s presence in the DACH region as one of DIF’s key markets. Over the years, DIF has completed more than 30 investments in Germany in renewables, PPPs, utilities, energy, rail and container leasing and has become one of the leading midmarket players in German infrastructure.

While they are retiring from their full-time roles, DIF is pleased to be able to continue to benefit from Carl Jobst’s and Christopher’s experience and knowledge, given that they will be taking on certain non-executive roles at DIF.

The successors of Christopher and Carl Jobst both joined DIF in 2020. Caine Bouwmeester is a Managing Director and joined from Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG) in London, where he was responsible for the origination and execution of renewable energy investments in Europe. Caine has a track record of developing, acquiring and financing renewable energy projects and companies across Europe, North America and Africa. He has a Master’s degree in Finance from INSEAD and Bachelor’s degrees in Business and Financial Mathematics from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Marcel Beverungen is a Managing Director and joined from Rothschild in Frankfurt, where he was responsible for energy & power and infrastructure origination and execution in the DACH region. Prior to Rothschild, Marcel worked for UBS and Dresdner Kleinwort in Frankfurt and London. He has a Master’s degrees from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) and the University of Sankt Gallen (Switzerland).

Wim Blaasse, Managing Partner: “We would like to express deep gratitude to Christopher and Carl Jobst for their commitment and their contribution to the growth of the DIF platform over the last 13 years. At the same time, we are excited to welcome Marcel and Caine in their new roles and I am convinced they too will make a valuable contribution to DIF in the coming years through their new roles as Head of Renewable Energy and Head of Germany.”

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent fund manager, with more than €9.0 billion in assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• Traditional DIF funds, of which DIF Infrastructure Fund VI is the latest vintage, target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships, concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy, and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 160 professionals, based in ten offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, New York, Paris, Santiago, Sydney, and Toronto. For further information please visit www.dif.eu

Contact:

Allard Ruijs, Partner

Email: a.ruijs@dif.eu

Continuing to build on the firm’s strong current momentum, DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) today announces the opening of an office in New York (US) and the hiring of two senior professionals to bolster its investment and investor relations & business development teams.

The New York office will further deepen DIF’s US presence and its team will work closely with the team in the Toronto office which was established in 2012 to cover the North American market. The opening of the New York office is the 10^th local office in DIF’s global platform. Over the past ca. 10 years DIF invested more than USD 1 billion in North America across 18 different investments. The New York and Toronto offices are led by Marko Kremer, partner and Head of DIF’s North American franchise.

Kanan Joshi is joining the New York office as a Senior Director and as DIF’s first US hire. She joins the firm to spearhead its investments and strategy in the US digital infrastructure sector. She brings over 15 years of experience and has a strong track record in sourcing and investing in digital infrastructure assets. Most recently Kanan was the Head of Telecom Infrastructure at Upper Bay. Before that she worked at Digital Bridge and Deutsche Bank in New York, where she was responsible for the origination, structuring and execution of telecom investments across North America, Latin America and Asia. Kanan has deep domain expertise in data centers, cell towers and telecom industries, and enjoys long-standing relationships with established management teams. She has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Mumbai.

In addition, DIF’s global investor relations & business development team is announcing expansion with the hire of Luuk Veenstra, who joins the team as a Senior Director to cover a part of Europe and the Middle-East. Luuk has joined the DIF Schiphol office from M&G in New York, where he established the institutional business development & distribution business for North America. He was previously based in Amsterdam, working with the leading institutional investors in the Benelux. Before M&G, Luuk worked for PGGM’s infrastructure investment team, and for RBC and NIBC in various positions and locations globally, including 10 years in London. Luuk holds an MSc in Monetary Economics from the University of Groningen.

Wim Blaasse, Managing Partner: “Establishing an office in New York is part of our global strategy to establish a strong local presence in the key countries DIF invests in. We are also more than excited to welcome Kanan and Luuk to our firm. We are delighted to have recruited two such high calibre professionals to strengthen DIF’s investment and investor relations team. DIF expects to leverage Kanan’s unique background to help us stay at the forefront of emerging trends, partner with management teams and maximize value for our investors. Luuk will play a key role in further developing DIF’s LP network to support the growth of the DIF platform leveraging on his global distribution, business development and infrastructure investment experience.”

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent fund manager, with more than €9.0 billion in assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• Traditional DIF funds, of which DIF Infrastructure Fund VI is the latest vintage, target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships, concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy, and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 160 professionals, based in ten offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, New York, Paris, Santiago, Sydney, and Toronto. For further information please visit www.dif.eu

Contact:

Allard Ruijs, Partner

Email: a.ruijs@dif.eu

DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) is pleased to announce its commitment to Net Zero. As a globally operating private markets fund manager, DIF supports the goal of Net Zero greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions by 2050, in line with global efforts as a result of the Paris Agreement to have net zero emissions by 2050, or sooner. Since 2019, DIF has been measuring its own GHG emissions, taking steps to reduce its per capita emissions and offsetting the remainder. DIF is committed to continue doing this.

In addition, DIF commits to invest in line with the Paris Agreement targeting to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050, or sooner, by taking the following steps:

• Continue working with DIF’s portfolio companies to measure GHG emissions and identifying pathways to reduce emissions with the Paris aligned goal of net zero target by 2050, or sooner;
• Continuing DIF’s global investment program into renewable energy and related infrastructure to support the global energy transition to decarbonised sources of energy;
• Reporting in line with the Task Force on Climate-related Disclosures (“TFCD”) recommendations; and
• Reporting on DIF’s progress annually.

Finally, DIF has become a signatory to the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (“IIGCC”) as part of its advocacy on climate change. Together with this initiative DIF will work towards Net Zero solutions for the infrastructure investment market.

Wim Blaasse, Managing Partner, further comments: “We believe that the single biggest threat faced by our generation is climate change. At DIF we see it as our responsibility to apply the same urgency of action to climate issues, as we have done in our response to coronavirus, and we invite all our stakeholders to join us on this commitment.”

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent fund manager, with €9.0 billion of assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• Traditional DIF funds target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships, concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 160 professionals, based in nine offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Paris, Santiago, Sydney and Toronto. For further information please visit www.dif.eu

Contact: Allard Ruijs, Partner; a.ruijs@dif.eu.

Continuing to build on the firm’s strong current momentum, DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) is pleased to announce the hiring of three senior investment professionals to bolster its investment team.

Most recently, DIF hired Caine Bouwmeester as Managing Director in London, further strengthening the global activities in renewable energy. He brings more than 13 years of renewable energy experience and has a track record of developing, acquiring and financing more than 2GW of wind and solar projects globally, enabling over €3 billion of investment.

Prior to DIF, Caine was most recently a senior vice president at Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG) in London where he was responsible for the origination, structuring and execution of renewable energy investments in Europe. He has a Master’s degree in Finance from INSEAD and Bachelor Business Administration and Financial Mathematics degrees from Wilfrid Laurier University (Canada).

In addition, Marcel Beverungen has been hired as a Senior Director in the investment team in Frankfurt and Pierre Boschin as a Senior Director in the investment team in Paris to further expand and strengthen our local practices.

Marcel is an experienced infrastructure specialist, having worked as a Director in the energy, power and infrastructure team at Rothschild in Germany. Prior to Rothschild, Marcel worked at UBS and Dresdner Kleinwort, in their energy and renewables teams, advising many institutional investors and strategics on M&A, ECM and debt advisory type of transactions in German speaking countries. He has Master’s degrees from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) and the University of Sankt Gallen (Switzerland).

Pierre has a broad experience in the infrastructure and energy markets. Prior to joining DIF, Pierre was Managing Director at French leading M&A boutique Messier Maris & Associés, where he advised numerous transactions for major French utilities, blue chips and prime PE houses in the energy and industrial segments, in France and Southern Europe. Prior to that, he worked as an investment banker for Credit Suisse and Lazard. Pierre has Master’s degrees from the Ecole Polytechnique (France) and Oxford University (UK).

Wim Blaasse, Managing Partner: “We are excited to welcome Caine, Marcel and Pierre to DIF Capital Partners. We are delighted to have recruited three such high calibre professionals to strengthen DIF’s investment team. They will play a key role in the further growth of our platform and transacting attractive deals for our funds.”

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent infrastructure fund manager, with €8.5 billion of assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• DIF Infrastructure funds target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships (PPP/PFI/P3), concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 150 professionals, based in nine offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Paris, Santiago, Sydney and Toronto. Please visit www.dif.eu for further information.

Contact: Allard Ruijs, Partner; a.ruijs@dif.eu.

DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) is pleased to announce the final close of DIF Infrastructure VI (“DIF VI) at €3.03 billion, exceeding its €2.5 billion target.

DIF VI targets equity investments in projects and companies with pre-dominantly long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships, concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects, that generate stable and predictable cash flows as well as attractive risk-adjusted returns. The fund targets both greenfield and operational investments in Europe, the Americas and Australasia.

DIF VI has seen strong backing from existing and new investors to the DIF platform, receiving commitments from leading institutional investors across the globe.

Allard Ruijs, Partner at DIF Capital Partners said: “We are proud of this achievement, especially in the challenging times in which we live, which is a testimony to the strength of the DIF platform and the attractiveness of the DIF VI proposition. Over the past 15 years the team has been able to generate attractive returns for our investors by consistently investing in high quality projects, enhancing project value during our ownership through active shareholder engagement, as well as by achieving successful realisations. We are confident that DIF VI will be a successful continuation of this strategy, leveraging DIF’s unique global office network and dedicated local teams to source and manage attractive investment opportunities and build robust and diversified portfolios. We are thankful for the strong support received from investors for the DIF VI partnership.”

DIF VI has made a strong start, having committed to three investments to date thereby deploying ca. 20% of the fund. This includes investments in (i) BluEarth, a Canadian renewable energy platform, (ii) Cascade, a 900 MW long-term contracted Canadian power project, and (iii) stakes in Norte Litoral and Via do Infante, two Portuguese availability-based PPP roads. Furthermore, the fund has a strong pipeline of investments across its target sectors and geographies, including both greenfield and operational projects.

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent infrastructure fund manager, with €8.5 billion of assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• DIF Infrastructure funds target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships (PPP/PFI/P3), concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 150 professionals, based in nine offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Paris, Santiago, Sydney and Toronto. Please visit www.dif.eu for further information.

Contact: Allard Ruijs, Partner; a.ruijs@dif.eu.

2020 has been an extraordinary year for all of us. The Covid-19 pandemic has called into question some of the foundations of modern societies, from global supply chains to national health services. But most of all, 2020 has put a spotlight on resilience: the resilience of individuals, of communities, of businesses, of the climate and, in particular of the infrastructure investments of DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”).

Today, DIF is publishing its 2020 ESG Report – Building Back Better. With the publication of the report, DIF shows it has an action-oriented and transparent approach designed to positively engage with all our stakeholders ensuring the resilience of the assets in which it invests and promoting improvement in ESG performance over time.

Furthermore, DIF is pleased to announce that it achieved A+ UNPRI scores for 2020, for both the infrastructure and the strategy & governance modules. This is the result of an integrated approach to ESG across all of DIF’s activities. ESG remains a key strategic priority for DIF, and the awarded UNPRI scores confirm it is fully embedded in DIF’s investment principles, strategy, policies and processes.

DIF welcomes your feedback and is looking forward to continuing this important discussion with its stakeholders – collectively targeting to improve ESG performance and to take to mitigate climate change across the industry.

Please click on the following link to access the full report: DIF Capital Partners – ESG Report 2020.

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent infrastructure fund manager, with €7.6 billion of assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

• DIF Infrastructure funds target equity investments in projects with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships (PPP/PFI/P3), concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
• DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 145 professionals, based in nine offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Paris, Santiago, Sydney and Toronto. Please visit www.dif.eu for further information.

Contact: Allard Ruijs, Partner; a.ruijs@dif.eu.