UNITED STATES - The Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund is now searching for real estate managers for core and REIT strategies through new RFPs.

The search is on, through for request for proposals (RFPs), to find core managers with open-ended commingled funds so the pension fund can invest $200m-$250m (€141.2m-€176.5m) in the strategy, along with another $100m to be invested in international Reits.

Indiana PERF has established a 3% allocation for real estate, given it approximately $513m of capital to invest in the asset class.

The pension fund, with assets of $17.1bn to the end of June 2007, believes real estate will be a good way to manage risk through diversification of the overall portfolio, so Indiana will make a decision, with the assistance of Mercer, on both searches by November 12.

Investing in core funds should see the retirement fund buy fully-leased existing properties with solid, proven cash flow and a low level of volatility.

These properties could be a combination of office buildings, industrial properties, shopping centres and apartment in major metropolitan markets across the United States, which are thought to be showing solid future growth patterns.

Indiana's Reit strategy would be to buy stock in real estate companies around the world which own traditional real estate such as office, industrial, retail and residential.

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