UNITED STATES - Contra Costa County Employees’ Retirement Association has decided to take its US REIT investment program to the global stage.
The pension fund will be conducting a search for REIT managers over the next few months, according to Cary Hally, chief investment officer for Contra Costa County, and assessing the potential for future investment in countries such as Germany, United Kingdom, France and Australia.
"This is a natural extension for us to move our REIT program to a global one," said Hally.
"We think that there is going to be many more countries in the future that will have a REIT market and this will open up the investment opportunities for us."
The pension fund has not made a final decision as to how much capital will be allocated for the REIT search but Contra Costa County will be hiring outside managers to run the global program with the support of its general consultant, Milliman, Inc. out of its San Francisco office.
Contra Costa County has an existing REIT portfolio in the United States with a current value of $270m (€196m) while the pension fund also recently diversified its global real estate position with a recent $100m commitment into the DLJ Real estate Capital Partners IV commingled fund.
