The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (Kansas PERS) has approved its first real estate commitment of the year.
The US pension fund told IPE Real Estate it was investing $50m (€44m) in Jamestown’s Premiere Property Fund.
The allocation is part of the $325m it has earmarked for investment in the US and abroad in 2016, as reported in December.
It will place up to $150m into core investments and $175m into non-core investments through funds.
According to a board meeting document, Kansas PERS has made net contributions of $59.2m to the fund.
The value of the investment was $109.5m in June last year, returning a net 17.3% – the highest of any core fund in which Kansas PERS has invested.
Jamestown has a mixed strategy of core and core-plus.
The open-ended fund mainly buys office and retail assets in San Francisco and New York City.
Kansas PERS’s core commitments will be made by increasing positions with its existing core, open-ended fund manager lineup.
The pension fund typically commits $50m-65m at a time.
The Townsend Group, its real estate consultant, said Kansas PERS preferred to invest with skilled managers that remain focused on their core competences rather than managers branching out into new strategies.
