ThomasLloyd - global investment expertise and advice

ThomasLloyd Group is a global investment and advisory firm focussed on the infrastructure sector in Asia, particularly in sustainable impact infrastructure. First established in 2003, the firm employs 250 people across a global network of 17 offices across 3 continents.

We spoke to Nandita Sahgal Tully, Managing Director Merchant Banking at ThomasLloyd, about the growth outlook for sustainable impact infrastructure and the importance of the group's UK presence.

What does your company do?

“We are a global investment and advisory firm and we are solely dedicated to infrastructure in Asia. We are lead financiers and investors and we focus on sustainable impact infrastructure designed to improve the quality of life of the communities that we invest in. We were established in 2003 and we've always focused on sustainable and cleantech infrastructure. In 2011, we launched our Asia strategy with a focus on renewable energy, but we continue to look at other areas such as energy transmission, clean transportation and biomass waste management.”

Tell us a little more about your Asian strategy and a recent investment your company made there.

“Last year we made an investment in a Delhi-based solar developer called SolarArise India Projects becoming the largest single shareholder. Our investment will help them to expand their solar energy capacity by another 250 mega watts (MW) over the next couple of years. The other large shareholders in the company are Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (“GEEREF”) advised by the European Investment Bank and Kotak Mahindra managed Core Infrastructure India Fund (“CIIF”), one of India's largest financial services groups.

We felt this was an incredibly exciting opportunity and was our first investment in India. We believed in the management and we had comfort that other institutional shareholders were involved.”

You have a network of global offices including in the UK. Is the UK an important presence for your company?

“We have approximately 15 people in London including the key decision makers in our organisation. The investment is based in London and we view it as a key global financial centre. Many large family offices, co-investors and institutions who are interested in sustainable infrastructure are also in London so that is another benefit of us being based here.”

“The UK is a pioneer in the development of the Green Finance debate, and we are delighted to be a partner in this initiative.”

Are there any other benefits to being in the UK?

“We constantly talk to other co-investors and policy groups based here in the UK. We are very interested in the Green Finance Initiatives of the UK, launched by the City of London Corporation in conjunction with the UK government to promote the UK as a leading global centre for green finance and professional services. I do think the UK is pioneering in pushing the Green Finance dialogue forward and we are pleased to be involved in that work. And I think the Climate Bonds Initiative [a UK-based group which aims to mobilise the global bond market to finance climate change solutions] is a big part of that. From both a deal flow perspective, and also from a financing perspective, the UK is a very important location for us.”