{"id":22223,"date":"2026-03-01T11:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T11:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/22223\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T11:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T11:13:16","slug":"swiss-life-am-to-beat-1-25bn-target-for-latest-swiss-clean-energy-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/22223\/","title":{"rendered":"Swiss Life AM to beat $1.25bn target for latest Swiss clean energy fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

Swiss Life Asset Managers<\/a> is on course to surpass its target for the third vintage of its Switzerland-focused sustainable energy infrastructure fund, Infrastructure Investor has learned.<\/p>\n

Clean Energy Infrastructure Switzerland 3<\/a> (CEIS 3) is a closed-end fund launched in November 2022 with a target of SFr1 billion ($1.25 billion; \u20ac1.1 billion).<\/p>\n

The vehicle is a partnership between Swiss Life AM (51 percent) and UBS Asset Management<\/a> (49 percent) to provide Swiss institutional investors with exposure to Swiss Francs-denominated infrastructure investments.<\/p>\n

Christoph Gisler, head of infrastructure equity at Swiss Life AM, said the vehicle is poised to reach final close above its SFr1 billion target at the end of October.<\/p>\n

\u201cCEIS 3 will be the largest closed-end Swiss infrastructure fund that has ever been raised,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gisler highlighted the strong support from the manager\u2019s existing investors, resulting in a high re-up rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a very high level of investors who committed in addition to their existing exposure to UBS-CEIS 2,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that some sponsors, already aware of the manager\u2019s CEIS fund series, were spurred to broaden their investment exposure to include infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Fund performance<\/p>\n

CEIS 3\u2019s latest fundraising milestone is the culmination of a robust capital raising process.<\/p>\n

The fund reached its first close on SFr772 million in November 2022 \u2013 at the same time as its launch. This seed capital was drawn from a diverse pool of 38 institutional sponsors during the vehicle\u2019s pre-marketing phase.<\/p>\n

Significantly, the first close alone exceeded the total capital raised for each of the strategy\u2019s predecessors.<\/p>\n

CEIS 3 proceeded to amass SFr936 million for a second close in December 2024.
Swiss Life AM, however, has not been unaffected by the headwinds in the fundraising market, as the pace of its second close illustrated.<\/p>\n

The fund deploys a core and core-plus strategy to invest primarily in private, Swiss infrastructure assets.<\/p>\n

These investments are spread across renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy infrastructure and decarbonisation sectors.<\/p>\n

Investments will also cover utilities, transport and telecoms, power plants and grids, district heating networks, waste and recycling plants, water infrastructure and energy storage projects.<\/p>\n

The fund is targeting a 5 percent net IRR in Swiss Francs.<\/p>\n

Gisler said that this returns profile is equivalent to 7-7.5 percent net IRR in euros and approximately 8-8.5 percent in US dollars.<\/p>\n

Predecessor funds<\/p>\n

The fund\u2019s predecessor, UBS Clean Energy Infrastructure Switzerland 2<\/a> (UBS-CEIS 2), was a joint venture between UBS, Swiss manager Fontavis and Swiss Mobiliar.<\/p>\n

The CEIS fund series came under Swiss Life AM\u2019s management following its purchase of the specialist sustainable infrastructure manager Fontavis in 2019.<\/p>\n

UBS-CEIS 2 held a final close with commitments of SFr472 million in September 2019 \u2013 exceeding its SFr450m target.<\/p>\n

The vehicle attracted investments from 40 institutional sponsors, spanning private and public pension schemes as well as insurance companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were mainly domestic, Swiss Franc-[denominated] institutional investors. But there were some international investors with Swiss links,\u201d said Gisler.<\/p>\n

He explained that a key benefit for sponsors was that the fund offered exposure to Swiss Franc-denominated infrastructure assets, helping to match against their long-term liabilities, which are also held in Swiss currency.<\/p>\n

The first fund in the series, UBS Clean Energy Infrastructure Switzerland<\/a>, was launched in November 2013 with a target of SFr500 million. It closed on SFr396 million from 13 investors in 2016.<\/p>\n

A key driver for establishing the fund was to contribute to renewable energy production in Switzerland and safeguard the country\u2019s energy supply, in line with the Federal Council\u2019s Energy Strategy 2050.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swiss Life Asset Managers is on course to surpass its target for the third vintage of its Switzerland-focused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2016,41,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-22223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-featured","9":"tag-swiss","10":"tag-switzerland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}