The UK Infrastructure Bank’s transformation into the National Wealth Fund

I am sure many of you will have heard that the UK Infrastructure Bank (UKIB), the organisation I have led and helped build over the last three years, has been transformed into the National Wealth Fund (NWF). 

As I discussed at GIIA’s recent London Conference, the new government has significant ambition for the NWF to catalyse private investment in projects nationwide across a broader waterfront of sectors. But what changes can you expect to see?

The first point is that this isn’t year zero. We're going to take everything that we've learned as UKIB and build on it, taking more risk to achieve even greater impact and influence in helping deliver the government’s policy agenda. 

Second, our remit will expand. No longer focused purely on infrastructure, the National Wealth Fund will be able to support the broader industrial strategy where there is an undersupply of private finance, and we are expecting further detail on this from the Government in the spring. To be clear, we will continue to be entirely focused on our existing sectors, but we will have a broader reach as we catalyse private investment in key growth industries. 

And finally, to support this, we have more capital - the Chancellor confirmed an additional £5.8bn on top of our existing £22bn capacity at the International Investor Summit last month. This will be deployed through a range of products and financial instruments, from existing debt, equity and guarantees to new performance guarantees or, in time, blended finance solutions. However, we will remain product agnostic, retaining the agility to deploy the right solution to the financing problem we are seeking to solve. We will also have more economic risk capital to enable our investments to have the greatest economic impact in support of our growth and net zero objectives. We already have the UK’s largest infrastructure banking and investments team, and we will now recruit at pace for the new skills and experience that we need to deliver against our broader mandate. 

In summary, as the NWF we have a bigger mandate, more people, more skills, more money, more ambition and, ultimately, more impact. 

Over the course of the next few months, we will be supporting our shareholder, HM Treasury, as it puts a new bill through Parliament to establish the NWF on a legislative footing. We will also be receiving a strategic steer from the Chancellor that will outline the priorities for our investments. 

I look forward to continuing to work with the global investor community to secure the investment that the UK needs to drive long-term growth. It is a huge privilege to be entrusted with the responsibility of leading the National Wealth Fund, and we stand ready to help the market invest with confidence. 

Article written for GIIA by John Flint, Chief Executive Officer, National Wealth Fund.