NORTH AMERICA – The Sacramento County Employees' Retirement System has approved its 12-month real estate investment plan, setting aside as much as $225m (€173m) for the asset class.

The vast majority of the capital, as much as $175m, will be set aside for core investments.

Scott Chan, CIO at the pension fund, said: "We will be re-assessing our current line-up from both a separate account and commingled fund perspective on a core basis."

The pension fund continues to work with BlackRock Realty and Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers on a separate account basis. 

"Part of the investments planned for the year will be for these managers to find more core assets to buy," Chan said. 

"We would be looking for retail and industrial properties on the East Coast. This is where we are under-allocated in our existing portfolio with these managers."

Sacramento County also has the same two managers on a core commingled fund basis – the Granite Property Fund managed by BlackRock and the Patriot Fund run by Cornerstone. 

The scheme will consider adding some new managers for core commingled funds, it said.

Sacramento County is looking to invest as much as $50m in non-core investments in the form of commingled funds with a value-added or opportunistic strategy.

As of the end of 2012, the pension fund had invested a total of 12.3% of its $6.6bn in total plan assets in real estate.