GLOBAL - The infrastructure fund of the €111bn asset manager PGGM has taken a 33.75% stake in the largest wind farm to be constructed in Latin America.

The €66m project, Marenas Renovables, is set to be built in Oaxaca, Mexico, and is to be commissioned at the end of 2013, according to PGGM.

The wind farm's capacity of 396 megawatt is to be delivered by 132 turbines.

Mexican bottling plant Femsa and Heineken's local brewery will buy the generated wind power, PGGM said.

It said that the future wind farm could be operated without subsidies thanks to a relatively high local energy price.

Henk Huizing, the head of infrastructure at PGGM, said: "Long-term purchase contracts offer stable, inflation-linked cash flows, which match our customers' liabilities."

A spokesman at PGGM declined to provide details about the expected returns, but said the asset manager was aiming to acquire other "interesting illiquid investments".

He added that PGGM had invested €2.5bn in infrastructure so far, but declined to indicate the assets allocated to this asset class.

Mitsubishi Corporation has taken an equal stake in Marenas Renovables, while Macquarie Mexico Fund has taken a 32.5% stake in the project.

Previously, PGGM invested directly in the €1.2bn British offshore wind park Walney. In a joint venture with Ampere Equity Fund, it took a 24.8% stake in the project.

PGGM is the asset manager and pensions provider of the €111bn healthcare scheme PFZW and five other Dutch pension funds, with approximately 2.5m participants in total.

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