South Carolina Retirement System (SCRS) is doubling its commitments to three open-ended core real estate funds, allocating more than $1bn (€855m) in new equity.

SCRS said in a meeting document that it will add $533m to the $400m it already has invested in Morgan Stanley Prime Property Fund, and place an additional $322m into Blackstone Property Partners on top of the $300m holding it already owns.

The $31.3bn pension fund is also committing $189m to the Heitman Core Real Estate Debt Income Trust, a real estate debt fund in which it already has $200m invested.

SCRS said the Morgan Stanley Prime Property Fund, which has been running since the 1970s, had been the top performing fund in the ODCE universe in recent years.

The pension fund said it had outperformed the index by 50bps annually since 1978, generating a 9.2% return versus the 8.7% benchmark.

Blackstone Property Partners, which was launched in 2014, has outperformed the ODCE Index by 280bps on an annual basis and has reached a gross time-weighted return of 13.7%, according to SCRS.

Heitman’s open-ended real estate debt fund was launched last year and is targeting net returns of between 7.5% and 9.5%.

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