Stafford to advise Swiss pension funds on infrastructure secondaries

The investment management and advisory firm will help around 500 Swiss pension funds to invest in infrastructure secondaries.

Investment manager and advisory firm Stafford Capital Partners will provide investment advice on infrastructure secondaries investments to a group of Swiss pension funds.

The firm will advise IST3 Investment Foundation on 120 million Swiss francs’ worth of investment ($126.9 million; €115.03 million). It has already completed the first investment while others are at various stages of development, according to a statement.

IST3 is the investment board of IST, which manages about 6.4 billion Swiss francs on behalf of about 500 private and institutional pension funds in Switzerland.

Stafford has “a mandate to put investment recommendations forward to IST3 to purchase secondary LP stakes in funds”, CEO Angus Whiteley told Secondaries Investor, adding that the firm will advise the Swiss consortium on infrastructure investments globally.

The firm has recently completed investing all of its Stafford Infrastructure Secondaries Fund, Whiteley said. The fund is a 2012-vintage €66.1 million commingled vehicle, according to PEI data.

Stafford Capital Partners, which provides advisory services on alternative assets, has $4.5 billion under management and a 36-member team specialising in agriculture, infrastructure, private equity, sustainable capital, timber and venture capital, according to its website.