UK Infrastructure Bank to Become National Wealth Fund in Domestic Infrastructure Push

The U.K. Infrastructure Bank will become the National Wealth Fund, a 27.8-billion-pound ($36.29 billion) entity which will make domestic infrastructure investments, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced Monday.

“When we said we would end instability, make growth our national mission and enter a true partnership with business we meant it,” Reeves said in a statement. “The decisions which lie ahead of us will not always be easy. But by taking the right choices to grow our economy and drive investment we will create good jobs and new opportunities across every part of the country. That is the Britain we are building.”

The fund will make domestic energy transition and infrastructure investments in strategic sectors such as green steel, green hydrogen, industrial decarbonization, ports and battery gigafactories.

“The NWF creates an opportunity for simplification and scale. The challenge now is to ensure it delivers private capital at the pace we need, through innovative risk-sharing transactions in new technologies,” Rhian-Mari Thomas, CEO of the Green Finance Institute, an organization advising the NWF, said in a statement.

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Planning for the national wealth fund began in July following the election of the Labor government, which began drafting plans for the fund in March. Originally, plans were to merge the British Business Bank with the UKIB, however, the BBB will instead make its own investments alongside private capital.

Jonathan Reynolds, secretary of state for business and trade, also announced Monday the British Growth Partnership, an initiative for institutional investors to invest alongside the BBB

“Today’s announcement is a strong endorsement of the British Business Bank’s 10-year track record, market access and capabilities,” Reynolds said in a statement. “By establishing the British Growth Partnership, the Bank will encourage more U.K. pension fund investment into the U.K.’s fastest growing, most innovative companies.”