New York State Teachers Retirement System has invested $125m (€109m) of growth capital directly into Donahue Schriber Retail Group.

The investment, made in-house without the help of external advisers, will be used by the real estate investment trust (REIT) to make additional property investments.

NYSTRS now owns approximately 40% in the REIT, valued at $523m. Another major stakeholder of the company is the JP Morgan Strategic Property Fund, a $21bn core open-ended commingled fund

Donahue Schriber owns 70 grocery-anchored shopping centres across in a number of western states.

NYSTRS told IP Real Estate that its assets were located in areas with strong demographics and were less prone to large swings in value compared with other commercial real estate sectors.

In the last two weeks, Donahue Schriber has closed on two new acquisitions in California: the 320,000sqft Village Oaks shopping centre in San Jose, California for $111m from California State Teachers Retirement System and PCCP; the 91,300sqft Gilman Village in Berkeley for $33m.