PSP and Brookfield Have Co-Invested Since 2018 and Just Agreed a C$1.6 Billion Enercare Deal: How to Map Warm Paths Through a Long-Running Sponsor Partnership

PSP Investments and Brookfield have been co-investors in Enercare since 2018, and on 9 November 2026 PSP Investments announced a C$1.6 billion agreement to buy 50% of the company from Brookfield and its institutional partners. We covered the deal itself in our note on PSP's Enercare purchase. This piece is about a different question that matters to fund managers: when two institutions have invested together for years, how do you map a route to the people on both sides?

Why a repeat partnership matters

The announcement describes a long-standing relationship in which PSP and Brookfield have invested together across multiple infrastructure sectors and geographies. PSP has been an Enercare investor since it co-invested alongside Brookfield in the company's privatization in 2018, which is about eight years of shared ownership by our arithmetic. A relationship of that length means shared advisers, shared lenders, joint board seats and a set of people on both sides who know each other. That network is where a credible introduction is likely to come from, and it is more useful than a cold approach to a head of infrastructure.

A long hold also tells you something about how PSP works. Since the privatization, the announcement says, Enercare has expanded into Quebec and Western Canada with both partners supporting its growth, and PSP is now buying a 50% interest in a company it has co-owned since 2018. In our view that is the kind of relationship where the existing team trusts the people it has worked with, and where a new name needs a reason to be heard.

Step 1: Read the history, not just the headline

This section is our advice, not guidance from PSP. Build a short map of every transaction in which your target limited partner appears beside the same sponsor: the asset, the year, the role each side played and the other co-investors named. Each repeat is an access point. Our piece on why co-investors are your warmest route to fund LPs explains why shared deals carry more weight than shared conferences.

Step 2: Find who sits on each side

The announcement names Andrew Alley, Managing Director and Global Head of Infrastructure Investments at PSP, and Nick Perreten, President and Chief Executive Officer of Enercare. Treat names and titles as a starting point for your own network search, not as a reason to approach anyone directly. Ask who in your network has worked with each of them, for example as a co-investor, lender or adviser, and use a warm introduction from that person. Do not use or look for personal contact details.

A simple way to keep the map usable is to write each repeat deal as one line with six items: the year, the asset, PSP's role, the sponsor's role, the other parties named publicly and the person in your network who touched it. After ten or fifteen lines, the people who appear most often are usually the ones whose introductions carry weight.

Step 3: Look at the process around the deal

The announcement lists financial and legal advisers on both sides. Advisers who ran the process have met both teams, and relationships with them can be a route to context. In our view the right use is to ask for general market perspective, not for confidential detail about a live transaction.

Step 4: Test your overlap with the sponsor

Check whether your fund, your existing investors or your portfolio companies overlap with Brookfield or its institutional partners. The announcement says the sellers include institutional partners without naming them, so you cannot assume anything about who they are. If you find an overlap through your own records, record it as a fact you can state plainly in an introduction.

Step 5: Match your ask to how PSP invests

The deal is a direct stake held alongside a sponsor, not a fund commitment. If your strategy allows it, a co-investment opportunity or a partnership structure alongside your fund gives a PSP team a reason to engage that a blind-pool fund pitch may not. Our guide to building a warm path to LPs covers how to frame that first message.

What not to do

Do not cite a live deal as a reason for PSP to commit to your fund, and do not imply that you know anything about a transaction beyond what was announced. Do not name individuals in a cold message just because they appear in a public announcement. Ask your introducer for permission before using their name, and keep the first message short enough to be forwarded without edits.

Step 6: Time the approach

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2027, after customary regulatory approvals. The people closest to it are likely to be busy until then. A light, informative first touch that does not ask for a meeting is often better than a request during a closing process, and a follow-up after closing is easier to place.

What to watch next

Watch for the closing, and for whether the same pairing appears in further infrastructure deals. PSP has said it expects its Canadian investments to surpass C$100 billion over the next few years, so more activity in Canada is plausible. For a comparison with a different group structure, see how four Canadian pensions co-invested through one Blackstone-led group. FundLinx members can map relationships between pensions and their repeat partners.

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