The California State Teachers’ Retirement System is backing Kildare’s second European real estate fund with a $300m (€269.2m) commitment.

The US pension fund approved a commitment into the Kildare European Partners II fund, which focuses on distressed assets.

The pension fund said it was “always looking for investment opportunities, including within the current Brexit environment”.

CalSTRS’s commitment represents a large expansion of its existing relationship with Kildare.

The pension fund made a $54.5m investment in Kildare European Partners I in 2014.

The new commitment will give CalSTRS 15% ownership in the fund, which is targeting a $2bn capital raise, according to the pension fund’s website.

Most of its assets will be in Germany, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands.

The fund is targeting a gross IRR of at least 20%, with deals ranging between $100m and $200m in size.

These will include investment in a variety of distressed loans or real estate assets at a discount.

CalSTRS made the Kildare investment as part of $900m in new real estate commitments approved by the pension fund.

The pension fund also invested $100m in the open-ended, core JP Morgan Asia Pacific Property Fund and $200m in the DivcoWest Fund V fund.

DivcoWest will be investing all of its capital in US office and R&D assets.

A further $300m was placed into the Lone Star Real Estate Fund V, which will invest in a broad range of distressed investment opportunities in developed markets.