All week I've been begging for a struck price — and it took a bankruptcy judge to finally hand me one. This is Infrastructure Secondaries Daily. Today: a solar credit bid that sets a real floor, a record quarter for European batteries, and two bank-and-pension pools chasing infra across three continents. Daniel — start with Brookfield. Nate Gregory, writing in Briefs:
A US bankruptcy judge approved Brookfield Corp. as lead bidder and main lender, allowing it to use at least $114.8 million in debt to bid. Asset manager Berenberg opposed the dual role, but Judge Alfredo Perez rejected the argument.
The cleanest price-discovery event in today's rundown came out of the GoldenPeaks bankruptcy — solar assets in Poland and Hungary. Judge Alfredo Perez approved Brookfield using at least $114.8 million of its debt as the lead bid. A judge set the floor — not a DCF, not a GP's marketing deck. Careful with that, though. A credit bid isn't a market-clearing price — it's the face value of the debt Brookfield already holds. That number tells you what Brookfield's owed, not what the solar assets are worth. Fair — but at least it's got a date and a docket. GoldenPeaks filed in May, and we're at an approved lead bid in roughly two months. That's a reference point that actually exists, which is more than half these infra marks give me. And Berenberg stood up and said the dual role — lender and lead bidder in the same seat — is a conflict. Perez waved it off. So if any secondaries buyer benchmarks Polish solar off $114.8 million, they're pricing off a litigation artifact, not a transaction. From Cosima Sagmeister at Modo Energy:
Modo Energy tracked 38 deals across ten countries in Q2 2026, covering nearly 14 GW of capacity. Great Britain (GB) led with 12 deals and the most project-finance closings of any market. Germany came second, leading on capacity, though most of its headline capacity is allocated to platform investments. Contracted revenues underpinned the transactions that closed, although full tolls stayed rare.
Modo tracked 38 European battery deals in Q2, nearly 14 GW across ten countries. GB led on volume: twelve deals. Germany came second — but read the fine print: about 5.6 GW of the German capacity is platform investment, not asset-level financing. And that distinction matters, because a platform check and a project-finance closing aren't the same thing to underwrite. Fourteen gigawatts is a deployment number. It tells me nothing about what these things clear at when someone tries to sell one on. Right — and here's what I actually want out of a 38-deal quarter. Only five disclosed a full toll. Fifty-five percent disclosed any revenue structure at all. If a secondaries buyer wants to underwrite European BESS, they're still doing bespoke legal review on every single one. Twenty-five banks split across the field, with NORD/LB and Santander topping out at three deals each. Standardization is still miles away; it's a cottage industry that's scaling fast. And PPAs and optimiser agreements are carrying most of the revenue side. Contracted revenue's underpinning the closings, sure, but with 'partially disclosed' on more than half the book, secondary pricing on these can't get sharper until the paper gets more uniform. Compare that with the Brookfield solar bid we just hit — a judge set a number, on the record. Here, you've got 14 gigawatts and no reference mark you'd trust across deals. Volume record, price-discovery desert. This one's from News Wire:
Morrison, the manager behind the NZX-listed infrastructure investor Infratil, announced on Tuesday that Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank would take a 15 percent equity stake in the firm and commit billions of dollars to invest alongside it. The Japanese bank will buy the stake through a new issue of shares, which means the money goes into Morrison to fund its growth rather than into the pockets of existing owners.
Sumitomo Mitsui Trust is putting US$2 billion into Morrison — 15 percent, structured as a new share issue, so the money goes into the firm, not the founders' pockets. That's the detail I actually respect here. Growth capital, not a cash-out. Agreed. But look at the wire language — ports, power lines, data centres and airports, all in one breath, and not a single as-of mark on any of it. Right, the US$1.5 billion collaboration piece is the tell — they're raising fresh product together off a Japanese distribution base. Nobody's marking the existing book. They're building the next one. Which is convenient, because a fresh vehicle doesn't have to explain where the current book is carried. This is a primary deal — I'm not pretending there's a discount-to-par hiding in it. I just notice the pattern: appetite loud, price silent. And it's the same week CPP is running a billion-plus into Indian data centres. Two bank-and-pension-adjacent pools, same asset thesis, different continents. I want to know whether either price survives a secondaries re-trade, or if they're both just locking in the long-duration mark before rates move. This one's from Chief Investment Officer:
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board continues to add data center assets to its portfolio, with the latest in the form of a C$1.4 billion ($985 million) investment as part of a strategic partnership deal with Indian data center operator CtrlS Datacenters Ltd. The agreement involves CPP Investments acquiring an 8.2% stake in CtrlS Datacenters for C$1 billion ($700 million), as well as contributing C$441 million for a 48% stake in a joint venture with CtrlS.
So here's the tension I can't shake — CPP writes a C$1.4 billion check into Indian data centers the same week Blackstone's rotating out of stabilized campuses. Two of the smartest capital pools in the world, opposite directions, same asset class. And it's a clean number for once — 8.2% for C$1 billion. That implies a real enterprise value on CtrlS, with a named buyer and a stated percentage. Put it next to CPP's C$1.4 billion CtrlS math, and you've got two arm's-length data-center marks landing in one week. But read the second half, Cass. The C$441 million goes into a JV that CtrlS controls 52-48. CPP's paying up for a minority position in the development vehicle. Right — one announcement, two very different structures. The equity stake gives you a mark. The JV gives you exposure and someone else's steering wheel. Which is fine if you're a C$793 billion fund with a thirty-year horizon. But make a secondaries buyer price it tomorrow, and I want to see whether that 8.2% mark survives a re-trade. India data-center growth is real, but 'accelerating hyperscale demand' is exactly the sentence that justifies a mark nobody's tested. And notice what's missing — no reference-date NAV on the wire, no independent mark named. Contrast that with the Brookfield solar bid we just hit, where a bankruptcy judge set the floor. CPP shows you the appetite; it still doesn't show you the clearing price. So is CPP catching the top, or is Blackstone leaving early? Genuinely don't know. But I'd want to see the CtrlS debt structure before I treated that C$1 billion as a valuation. Have a tip, a story idea, or a correction for us? Send us a note at infrastructuresecondariesdaily at lantern podcasts dot com. We read what comes in, and it helps shape the briefing.
You'll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, if you want to dig further into any of them. That's Infrastructure Secondaries Daily for Thursday, July 9th. This is a Lantern Podcast.