NORTH AMERICA – The Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois has allocated approximately $600m (€450m) for new real estate investments for the 2103-14 fiscal year, a sizeable increase on the previous year's target of $400m.
Illinois Teachers will be looking at a range of strategies targeting multiple risk profiles, including a combination of core, value-add and opportunistic.
The pension fund will target Asia, Europe and the US, and investment strategies may include all of the main property types.
It will be looking to place the new capital with a combination of existing and new managers.
Illinois Teachers wrote in an email that these decisions would be "strategy driven".
At present, the pension fund's real estate portfolio, compared against the NCREIF Property index, is underweight office buildings and industrial properties and overweight retail assets.
Illinois Teachers as a whole invests in real estate through a combination of commingled funds and separate account managers.
Existing managers to which it has awarded new capital in the past year include Principal Real Estate Investors, Oaktree Capital Management and GI Partners.
The pension fund has a real estate portfolio valued at $4.6bn, as of the end of March, amounting to 11.7% of total plan assets.
It has a long-term target for real estate of 14%.
