UNITED STATES - Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund is moving $150m (€95.1m) of assets into value-added commingled funds.

The pension fund decided at its May 14 board meeting these three new commitments worth $40m each will give the pension fund the opportunity for diversification and higher returns, according to Walt Koziol, director of investments at the pension fund.

"We were looking to expand our real estate investment program from core to value added. We had made commitments to core by placing capital with the Granite Property Fund with BlackRock Realty and the Prime Property Fund with Morgan Stanley," said Koziol.

The Five Arrows Realty Securities V, Rockwood Capital Real Estate Partners VIII and TA Associates Fund IX are the beneficiaries of the investment, but Invesco Real Estate was not selected during the value-added search.

TA Associates is now raising capital for its Fund IX so it can buy value-added investments in all of the main property types.

That said, Illinois Municipal - which has total plan assets of $23.5bn - has not finished placing capital in real estate for the year, as Koziol added: "We are planning to invest $100m later this year into commingled funds with an opportunistic strategy."


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