Netherlands-based APG Asset Management, the manager of the world's second largest pension fund, has acquired a 49 % stake in Celeo Redes, a subsidiary of Spanish infrastructure and energy developer Elecnor.

Celeo was advised by Netherlands-based Voltiq, whereas APG was advised by Santander.

Through the transaction, for which APG is due to commit €237 million, the pension fund has agreed to jointly invest €372 million with Elecnor in Latin American transmission projects over the next five years. The deal, still subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the third quarter of the year.

Celeo Redes is a subsidiary of Celeo Concesiones e Inversiones, the company through which Spain's Elecnor invests, operates and exploits its investment project assets. The group is involved in 11 electricity transmission concession companies in Brazil, totalling 3,734 kilometres of transmission lines. All are 30-year contracts put out to tender by Agencia Nacional de Energía Eléctrica, the country's energy regulator.

It is not the first time Elecnor has partnered with institutional investors. In late June its wind subsidiary sold 49 percent of the 100-megawatt (MW) L'Érable Wind Farm to a consortium comprising Canadian insurer Industrialist Alliance Insurance and Financial Services, Ontario fund manager Fiera Axium and Quebec-based renewables developer Eolectric.

Elecnor's latest projects include a 328-kilometre transmission line between the states of Minas Gerais y São Paulo as well as two lines, respectively 255 kilometres and 196.5 kilometres long, in Chile.

APG, which manages assets of about €343 billion, has built an ambitious direct investment programme through which it has backed various large scale infrastructure projects.