One of Britain’s leading financial mutuals is in talks to buy Dalmore Capital, the infrastructure investor which owns a stake in the Thames ‘super sewer’.
Sky News has learnt that Royal London is among the suitors circling Dalmore, which began exploring a sale earlier in the autumn.
Royal London’s interest is serious but has yet to result in a binding offer, according to infrastructure industry sources.
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Other parties are also understood to have expressed an interest in buying Dalmore, they added.
If Royal London proceeds with a deal, it would reflect the growing push by traditional asset managers into so-called alternatives such as infrastructure.
BlackRock, the world’s biggest fund manager, recently swooped to buy Global Infrastructure Partners, the former owner of London’s Gatwick Airport.
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RLAM, Royal London’s asset management arm, runs over £170bn of clients’ money.
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Dalmore is much smaller than GIP, with £6bn of assets under management, but is well-regarded in the sector and has a high-profile portfolio of assets.
Among them are stakes in Thames Tideway’s 25km super-sewer, which is expected to be fully operational next year; Porterbrook, a leading owner of rolling stock for Britain’s railways; Cory, the waste-to-energy giant.
It is also a backer of IEP West, a rolling stock contract with the government to maintain dozens of Hitachi Intercity Express Trains and three depots for the Great Western Main Line.
A person close to Dalmore said that a combination of normalising asset prices and the new government’s signalling of plans to increase infrastructure investment would create an attractive macroeconomic backdrop for the firm.
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Dalmore is majority-owned by its founders, with GCM Grosvenor also a shareholder.
Estimates of its value vary although some market sources suggested it could be in the region of £100m.
Royal London and Dalmore both declined to comment.
