London, 13 February 2025 – Arcus Infrastructure Partners (“Arcus”) is delighted to announce the completion of the sale of its smart metering businesses, Horizon Energy Infrastructure (“Horizon”) and Smart Meter Assets (“SMA”) to global investment firm KKR.
Since acquisition, Arcus has worked closely with the respective management teams to transform Horizon and SMA, significantly improving the scale and quality of both businesses through the implementation of a wide range of value creation initiatives, including winning new contracts with UK energy suppliers, raising debt financing, M&A, funding UK water meters and German smart meters and expanding into adjacent green infrastructure, such as heat pumps, EV chargers and solar PV systems. Under AEIF2’s ownership, Horizon and SMA won c. 3m new contracted meters with Octopus, OVO, Utilita, SO Energy and EDF, raised £940m of debt financing under an innovative structure, put in place long-term interest rate hedges, increased contract coverage of the meter base to 95% and significantly improved the ESG credentials of both businesses. At exit, the combined portfolio stands at c. 3.5m installed energy meters, with a c. 1.9m contracted pipeline of energy meters.
Stefano Brugnolo, Partner and Head of Energy at Arcus, commented: “We’d like to extend our sincere gratitude to Tom Thorp, Jeff Studholme, Richard Rose, and the entire Horizon and SMA teams for their partnership and commitment over this journey. Together, we have significantly grown the meter asset base and contracted meter pipelines for Horizon and SMA, expanded into new business areas and established a highly efficient funding platform for green, distributed energy infrastructure. The combined business is now well positioned to deliver its next phase of growth and development.”
About Arcus
Arcus Infrastructure Partners is an independent fund manager focused solely on long-term investments in European infrastructure. Arcus invests on behalf of institutional investors through discretionary funds and specialist co-investment vehicles and, through its subsidiaries, currently manages investments with an aggregate enterprise value of c. €24bn (as at 30 September 2024). Arcus targets mid-market, value-add infrastructure investments, with a particular focus on businesses in the digital, transport, logistics & industrials, and energy sectors. Further information on Arcus Infrastructure Partners can be found on www.arcusip.com.
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