- Fund reports solid progress in first 16 months and healthy pipeline of investment opportunities.
- In advanced discussions on 53 potential investment opportunities with a combined value of €2.4bn
- Some 650 people attended the Fund’s third annual market engagement event in Dublin today
Thursday 21 April 2016 - The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund has made solid progress in its multi-year investment programme and is in advanced discussions in respect of 53 opportunities with a combined value of €2.4 billion, its Director said today as the Fund held its third annual market engagement event.
The Fund, which is controlled and managed by the National Treasury Management Agency, confirmed it committed €759 million to Irish investments in 2015, ending the year with total commitments of over €2 billion. It expects to commit over €750 million to additional investments in Ireland during 2016, increasing its total Irish investment commitments to almost €3 billion.
Eugene O’Callaghan, Director of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, said:
“The Fund has made substantial progress since its formal establishment just 16 months ago. We have managed the transition to a new investment mandate, are investing across the Irish economy and are generating significant economic impact.
Our scale, long-term perspective and flexible and innovative approach, combined with our ability to leverage additional investment from global and Irish co-investment partners, means the Fund can make a meaningful difference to the Irish economy.
Investing in projects that deliver a commercial return means that the Fund’s resources are not depleted and the economic impact obtained can be renewed over time as investments are recycled. Between now and 2020, we will continue to identify suitable commercial investment opportunities that will deliver incremental economic impact.”
Mr O’Callaghan was speaking at the Fund’s latest market engagement event, entitled “Progress and Opportunities”, which took place at Convention Centre Dublin today and was attended by some 650 entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors.
The Minister for Finance, Mr Michael Noonan TD, was the keynote speaker at the event. Other speakers included representatives of companies, projects and joint ventures in which the Fund has already invested or will shortly finalise its investment.
- Steven Collins, Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Swrve, a rapidly growing mobile marketing software company founded in Dublin.
- Robert Gallagher, CEO of Activate Capital, a €500m specialist lender to the Irish residential development sector.
- Chris Mairs, Principal at Leeds Equity, a private equity investor in the education sector.
- Ciaran McGivern, Finance Director at DCU, who spoke about the university’s Campus Development Programme.
- Rosheen McGuckian, CEO of NTR plc which recently launched a €250m wind investment fund.
- Sean Molloy, Director of Strategy and Supplier Relations at Glanbia Ingredients Ireland who spoke about a new €100m fund that will offer flexible, competitively priced loans to Glanbia milk suppliers with loan repayments linked to the milk price.
- David Raethorne, Partner at private equity group Causeway Capital, which recently launched a €60m SME equity fund.
Delegates also heard from senior ISIF representatives specialising in some the sectors of the economy that the Fund is investing in.
Mr O’Callaghan said the food and agri, technology, SME and real estate sectors are producing significant investment opportunities.
“We have a very promising pipeline of potential investments and it is improving all the time as our market engagement continues and people gain a greater understanding of our ‘double bottom line’ mandate,” he said.
“We remain open to approaches from entrepreneurs, project sponsors and advisors with ideas for investments that meet our mandate to generate commercial returns in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland”.