UNITED STATES - Kansas Public Employees Retirement System has sent out a Request for Proposal for a new real estate consultant.

Pension Consulting Alliance is its existing real estate consultant but the company has decided not to respond to the RFP, as the company made a decision last year stating it would not be re-committing to existing consultant relationships where the contract was coming to an end.

Instead, PCA decided it wanted to get more involved with independent fiduciary work with the pension funds, as it has done through its relationship with California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), and therefore did not respond to the RFP when the contract was up.

CalSTRS eventually selected The Townsend Group as its new real estate consultant.

Kansas PERS has set June 4 as the deadline RFP submissions and finalists will then make presentations at the July18 board meeting. It is likely a final decision will be made at that time.

The new real estate consultant will then assist Kansas PERS with managing its existing real estate portfolio and work on a future investment strategy.

The pension fund had a real estate portfolio valued at $959.6m (€601.1m) to the end of January, amounting to 7.1% of its $13.6bn of total assets.  The established targeted allocation for real estate is 8%.

One of its most recent investments was a $35m commitment to CB Richard Ellis Investors Strategic Partners Value Fund 5: a $1bn commingled fund that only invests in US real estate and mainly moves capital into the four main property types, although up to 20% of the fund can be invested in new development projects.

Kansas PERS places capital into real estate through a combination of commingled funds, REITs and separate accounts and its current investment policy calls for 50% core, 25% REITs and 25% non-core.

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