Crossing Amsterdam’s Leidseplein square is tricky for the casual visitor.
Getting from one side of the road to the other means navigating two sets of tramlines, buses and cars going in either direction, avoiding pedestrians—and that’s before you’ve considered the cycle lanes.
The Dutch, however, deftly step around (or wait for the signal to cross) such obstacles and take it all in their stride. Accessible, affordable infrastructure makes a positive impact on people’s lives in Amsterdam, which must be one of the main reasons so many of the country’s institutional investors are such big supporters of it—and may be one of the reasons why their neighbours across the North Sea have fallen woefully behind in infrastructure development and investing.
It is not only the Dutch who have infrastructure nailed down. The Scandinavians
got with the programme years ago too.For example, seven trains per hour leave Schiphol
Airport bound for the city centre. The journey takes 13 minutes and costs just
€4. Compare that with four trains an hour leaving the centre of London bound
for Heathrow at a cost of £21.50 (€29) for a journey of the same duration.
Without getting into an argument about public versus private companies running such a service, let’s remember the UK wasn’t always owned by Big Business—this is a legacy problem that needs addressing.
The Dutch have long been pioneers of infrastructure. How else could a city built upon 100 kilometres of canals have become one of the most powerful on earth (albeit in the 1600s)?
“It’s great isn’t it?” says a Dutch friend, who also happens to work at Europe’s biggest pension fund. “We can get to the airport from the office in about 10 minutes. I can be home and get to the beach with my kids before 6:30 pm after work.”
It is not only the Dutch who have infrastructure nailed down. The Scandinavians got with the programme years ago too.
“It makes sense,” a Danish CIO told me last year. “Denmark needs hospitals. We have capital and want a stable return, which hospitals and other government buildings provide. So we build them.”
In contrast, a venture launched by two large UK pension institutions in 2013—the Pension Infrastructure Platform, or PIP for short—has struggled to get off the ground. Despite the UK’s transportation infrastructure by anyone’s measure being in chronic need of updating and the country being increasingly reliant on importing energy to feed its needs, the PIP has yet to make an impact.
Some original supporters of the PIP have dropped out, others have remained, but it has launched just two funds to offer to the country’s investors. Its assets barely touch €500 million.
Around the same time as the PIP’s launch, the UK Chancellor said there were at least £2 billion infrastructure assets in which large investors could invest. It seems to be slow going.
Flying into Schiphol, air passengers see a traditional Dutch sight: windmills surrounding the city—but these tall, modern structures are helping keep the city’s lights on and providing an income stream for institutional investors.
Flying into London, passengers see a similar sight: a huge offshore wind farm, its blades whirring in the gusts following the North Sea. The operation, Gunfleet Sands, was launched and is operated by a firm backed by pension funds too.
They are all based in Denmark.