NORTH AMERICA – The Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund is conducting a request for proposals (RFPs) for commingled fund managers that will be investing capital in European and Latin American real estate.
The pension fund has allocated at least $100m (€73.2m) to both the European and Latin American strategies.
The intent of the contractual relationship will be to establish an ongoing relationship between Illinois Municipal and the hired firms.
The mandate size for this arrangement will be determined in future.
The pension fund is working on the RFPs with its real estate consultant, Callan Associates.
The responses for the searches much be sent in by 30 December.
Illinois Municipal has laid out several requirements for managers seeking to participate in the searches.
Managers must have current personnel to operate the strategy employed, as well as an existing commingled fund product in the market for which it is trying to raise capital.
The primary objective for the fund accounts is to outperform its appropriate index, net of fees over a full market cycle.
The account may also be evaluated against a secondary benchmark, as deemed appropriate.
Illinois Municipal has more than enough room in its real estate portfolio to cover the capital necessary for these searches.
The pension fund recently increased its real estate allocation from 6% to 8%, providing it with $650m of new capital to invest in the asset class.
