The Indiana Public Retirement System has chosen BlackRock as a REIT manager.
The pension fund awarded BlackRock $100m (€90m) to invest in industrial-only securities.
The investment manager, which declined to comment, will be using the FTSE NAREIT Custom Industrial 25% Capped Index as a benchmark.
Indiana will be investing in a passive, long-only strategy, seeking to achieve benchmark performance results with minimal tracking error.
The pension fund’s investment policy statement sets minimum exposure requirements to office, industrial, retail and apartment assets.
The fund is underweight industrial properties.
Indiana invested $65m in the Exeter Industrial Value Fund III in 2014.
The pension fund had EII Capital management as a REIT manager, terminated in September of 2014 due to performance and turnover.
The value of the portfolio at the time was $55m.
Indiana, which normally invests in the asset class through funds, had a real estate portfolio valued at $1.6bn in May, representing more than 6.4% of its total plan.
Its target allocation is 7%.
