UNITED STATES - Courtland Partners has hired Lou Canlas as a principal to boost its pension fund real estate consulting operations on the West Coast.

Prior to this hire, Courtland had just one analyst and one executive assistant working in the Los Angeles office opened in June.

 "I have been working on the pension fund side of the real estate business for many years.  I look at this as a new challenge for my real estate career."

Canlas is well-known name in the pension fund real estate business as her most recent position was senior investment officer for real estate and timber at the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board.

She previously ran a real estate portfolio valued at $4.5bn (€3.15bn euros), which included $3.5bn in private real estate and $1bn in REITs.

She also had an earlier stint in running the real estate portfolio at the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund but one of her duties at Courtland's will be to add to its presence on the West Coast.

Courtland has several clients in this part of the country, acting as a real estate consultant to Washington State Investment Board, New Mexico State Investment Council and Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System.

At the same time, Courtland also delivers real estate independent fiduciary work for pension fund clients such as California State Teachers Retirement System.

One of its most recent works for CalSTRS was for a follow-on commitment to the MSRE Special Situation Situations Fund III, which saw the pension make a new $200m commitment to the commingled fund.

If you have any comments you would like to add to this or any other story, contact Julie Henderson on + 44 (0)20 7261 4602 or email julie.henderson@ipe.com

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