Foresight, the niche UK alternative asset manager focused on solar and wind power, requires investor prescience. Its shares have been mostly ignored by the market even as its profits grow.

Renewable energy investments are gaining pace, spurred by the crisis-level price of natural gas. Yet the past twelve months have been bruising. Witness the performance of turbine manufacturer Vestas, down 16 per cent, or wind developer Orsted, which has fallen 21 per cent.

Foresight offers a different means of gaining exposure to renewables infrastructure. A major chunk of its £12.5bn in assets under management (AUM) are in funds which invest in solar, wind, battery and hydrogen projects. Foresight receives a fee for managing them, making the shares a leveraged play on project performance over time.

Revenues depend on how much money it can attract and the performance of net asset values, rather than any change in public market values as with most fund managers. So far it has tapped into a growth trend. AUM grew by 41 per cent in the six months to the end of September, partly because of an acquisition.

With interest in ESG investment still healthy, it targets a hefty 20-25 per cent average AUM growth on a rolling three-year average. This looks particularly compelling given the £5.5bn of fund outflows suffered by UK listed funds in October, according to Morningstar data.

Foresight should grow ebitda by almost 70 per cent this year, on S&P Capital estimates. This makes its poor stock price performance, down 17 per cent over the last twelve months, puzzling. Perhaps it is tarred with the listed UK asset manager brush, most of which are performing poorly. Foresight looks cheap on 10 times next year’s earnings.

This fact may alert bigger rivals and private equity groups, which have been circling the sector. Rival Greencoat was purchased by Schroders last year, while Bridgepoint is reportedly mulling a $1bn acquisition of US-based Energy Capital Partners. If the public markets do not take to Foresight, perhaps its rivals will.