VINCENT TCHENGUIZ, the Iranian-born entrepreneur, is planning to raise £850m from outside investors for a £1 billion London-based environmental fund.

The multi-millionaire tycoon is in talks with fund manager Bramdean, run by Nicola Hor-lick, about the proposals, and Bramdean may be handed a role in stock selection for the fund.

Tchenguiz has an existing relationship with the company having recently paid £40m for a 29.9% stake in Bramdean Alternatives, a listed fund.

Tchenguiz said the fund would invest in companies in environmentally-related businesses including solar power, geothermal energy, combined heat and power technology and landfill.

The entrepreneur has still to decide on which of the assets from his £300m environmental portfolio will be injected into the 10-year fund, but it could include his £65m stake in Southern Water and a £100m stake in the Challenger Infrastructure Fund.

Consensus, Tchenguiz’s private company, will be a corner-stone investor in the fund with a £150m stake.

The remaining £850m will be raised over the next six months from private investors, institutions, family offices and banks through private placings. He is already in talks with several banks about the fundraising, which will start in the new year.

Cash raised will be used to invest in businesses developing new environmental technologies. Tchenguiz, who has made a fortune from real estate with his brother Robert, plans to act as a link man between property groups looking for ways to improve their green credentials and companies producing cut-ting-edge environmental technology. He plans to do the same thing with water companies.

The fundraising comes just weeks after Tchenguiz said that he had carried out a radical review of his business and was restructuring his financing methods.

The global credit crunch has made it more difficult for the property baron to raise debt from the sale or refinancing of his property assets and from securitisation, so he is moving towards a more equity-driven model. Tchenguiz told The Sunday Times that he wants to make the environmental side of his business self-sufficient and no longer reliant on his property assets for financing.

Earlier this month he received a boost after securing around £750m in debt funding from separate credit facilities with Bank of Scotland and Merrill Lynch. He said the credit lines gave Consensus the firepower to add to the 600,000 residential properties and 300,000 ground rents under its management by around 50,000 units each next year.

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