Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) has acquired a minority stake in Smart Metering Systems (SMS) from KKR Infrastructure, on the heels of the UK metering giant’s takeover of Arcus’ metering business, according to sources familiar.

The UK pension fund – which has been linked of late to several infrastructure deals, including a possible takeover of investment manager NextEnergy Capital – recently acquired the stake in SMS via an equity syndication by KKR Infrastructure, sources said.

KKR has sold down stakes in companies it has bought in the past, such as in 2020, when it sold a 9.4% stake in Viridor to Hermes Infrastructure. Hermes is today mulling whether to offload this stake as KKR gears up to auction its majority holding in the UK waste giant.

KKR agreed early last year to buy SMS, which owns some 2.3 million smart electricity and gas meters, via a take-private for some GBP 1.3bn, equivalent to a roughly 20 times EBITDA multiple.

Several months later, SMS agreed to buy a further two UK metering companies, Horizon Energy Infrastructure and Smart Meter Assets, from Arcus Infrastructure, catapulting it to become one of the largest metering firms in Britain.

At the time of the sale, Horizon and SMA together had some 3.5 million electricity and gas smart meters, while its then latest EBITDA was some GBP 130m.

USS executives, including Nicolas Macke and Ana Maria Vasiu, since the Horizon and SMA deals have joined the boards of Cyrus Bidco, the vehicle owned by KKR funds that bought Horizon and SMA, filings show.

The two executives also recently joined the board of Sienna Midco 2 Limited, which owns Cyrus Bidco, according to the filings.

USS also, in recent days, advanced to the second round of the sale of both UK refrigeration and catering equipment business Lowe Rental and also of Antin Infrastructure Partners’ salmon farming vessel business Sølvtrans.

Rob Horsnall, USSIM’s head of direct equity, recently told Infralogic in an interview that it “continue[s] to look for opportunities to deploy capital in the large-cap space typically alongside lead investors.”

It is also willing to take greenfield risk, exemplified by its recent agreement to invest some GBP 250m over time into a GBP 10bn greenfield data centre in northern England being developed by Blackstone-backed data centre operator QTS.

USS and KKR declined to comment.