Gresham House’s SUSI acquisition creates a major international energy player – but is just one step in the manager’s growth plan. Rory Gallivan spoke to Gresham House’s CEO Tony Dalwood and James Redmayne, head of European private equity at Gresham’s majority-owner Searchlight Capital.

Gresham House’s acquisition of SUSI is a big step forward in its plan to more than double its assets under management – and also transforms its energy business from a UK-focused player to a global one.

The deal, which lifts Gresham’s AUM from GBP 9bn to GBP 10.7bn and creates a GBP 2.7bn energy transition platform, comes as Gresham looks to hit AUM of GBP 20bn by 2030.

Energy and infrastructure will be a continuing area of focus for Gresham as it looks to move towards this target.

On Gresham’s ambitions, Gresham’s Chief Executive Tony Dalwood told Infralogic he expects it to get to around GBP 15bn organically, with the rest to be achieved by M&A activity including around EUR 1.8bn (GBP 1.6bn) added by the SUSI acquisition.

M&A will focus on energy and infrastructure as well as natural capital or areas “contiguous” with these sectors, Dalwood says. Meanwhile, James Redmayne, head of European private equity at Gresham’s majority owner Searchlight Capital told Infralogic that any future acquisitions of asset managers it does would be through Gresham, so more purchases of energy and infrastructure managers by Gresham could be on the horizon.

International ambitions

Gresham, when it announced the SUSI deal, was keen to highlight how it creates a geographically diverse energy and infrastructure business, extending its reach into mainland Europe and Asia.

SUSI has an array of private infrastructure equity funds focused on Europe and OECD countries and Asia as well as senior infrastructure and higher-yielding infrastructure debt strategies.

The SUSI Asia Energy Transition Fund held a USD 259m final close in September 2024 and Gresham said as it announced the SUSI acquisition that “a follow-on Southeast Asia strategy is also planned for 2026.” The strategy targets renewable energy assets and areas such as energy efficiency in markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Other countries SUSI has invested in include the UK, Finland, Spain, Germany, Australia and Chile.

As well as adding Zurich-based SUSI’s geographically-varied portfolio to its asset base, Dalwood points to another way the transaction internationalises the manager – by enabling it to accelerate its push to raise funds globally.

“We have big plans for business development; from a UK fundraising base about three years ago we started looking to markets like Japan and Australia and raised money from both in 2025,” Dalwood told Infralogic.

“Since then we have also been talking to investors from Canada and the US,” he says, noting that “the SUSI acquisition will play a big role in accelerating our international fundraising efforts.”

Development Bank of Japan last year announced an investment in Gresham House Forest Fund VI, while, also in forestry, Australian superannuation fund NGS Super was among the backers of Gresham’s Sustainable International Forestry Strategy Platform, which reached a EUR 250m (GBP 217m) first close last year.

In line with Gresham’s prior focus on UK investors meanwhile, LPs to its British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund III (BSIF III) fund, for example, include Worcestershire County Council Pension Fund and The London Borough of Ealing, according to Infralogic data.

LPs to SUSI funds include the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the European Investment Bank and Deutsche Bank. Bringing in such relationships will boost Gresham’s ongoing efforts to internationalise its investor base.

Energy transition powerhouse

The GBP 2.7bn AUM energy business created by the SUSI transaction accounts for around a quarter of Gresham’s overall AUM, compared with just GBP 1.1bn out of GBP 8.7bn at the end of 2024.

Gresham House’s energy transition funds include the London-listed Gresham House Energy Storage Fund plc, described in its last annual report for calendar year 2024 as “the most significant” of its energy transition investments, owning 17.5% of the UK’s battery market. Smaller funds in energy transition include the Gresham House Renewable Energy VCT 2.

Gresham is also a player in non-energy infrastructure such as fibre through its BSIF strategy, taking its total infrastructure AUM including existing energy transition investments and SUSI to GBP 3.4bn. It is also active in natural capital including forestry, real estate and equities.

Gresham said as it announced the SUSI deal that the combined entity will be among Europe’s top 10 in energy transition asset managers by AUM.

The SUSI acquisition is also Gresham’s first move into debt, with SUSI’s offering including the SUSI Energy Efficiency and Transition Credit Fund and the SUSI Energy Transition Credit Fund IV. Dalwood says it is an area where it is keen to grow, retaining a focus on energy and infrastructure rather than moving into other sectors.

Searchlight support

Gresham’s GBP 20bn AUM ambitions – known as GH30 – date back to 2023, the year private equity firm Searchlight Capital acquired a majority stake in then London-listed Gresham in a take-private transaction, which also involved employees ending up with a stake of around 30%.

Searchlight, which has offices in London, New York, Miami and Toronto and assets under management of USD 16.8bn (GBP 12.5bn), invests in communications, media, financial services and business services.. Its acquisition of Gresham House, its first of an asset manager, gave the business an enterprise value of GBP 440.6m, with Searchlight paying 1,105 pence a share, a premium of 63% to its share price immediately before the acquisition was announced.

“Coming out of Covid we spent a lot of time looking at public companies, because we thought there were some good companies that were undervalued; Gresham had shown strong growth especially on the sustainable real asset side and we felt that it was not reflected in its share price,” Searchlight’s head of European private equity James Redmayne said.

Searchlight’s hunt for undervalued companies on the public markets resulted in it also in 2023 partnering with Providence Equity Partners to acquire London-listed global events business Hyve.

Gresham House announced the completion of the SUSI acquisition on 20 January and at the same time announced the planned opening of a new office in Frankfurt, to be led by Armin Sandhoevel, former chief executive of Allianz Global Investors’ infrastructure equity arm.

Given Gresham’s ambitions both to increase its AUM and geographically diversify its fundraising sources, this will just be a small step in the enlarged group’s international expansion in coming years.