NORTH AMERICA – The New York Common Retirement Fund has approved a $200m (€146.2m) commitment into the Morningside Investment Partners separate account relationship.
This investment entity will be managed by ARA Fund Management.
The relationship will be a new one for the pension fund and the manager.
Most of the capital will be invested in Far East, particularly Hong Kong and Singapore.
The initial capital for the account will have a limited amount earmarked for East Asia.
In the long term, the account will increase investment in region.
New York Common’s real estate assets make up 7% of its $164.2bn of total plan assets, as of March 2013.
In other news, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas has made a $35m commitment into the Pennybacker III commingled fund.
This investment was the only real estate commitment approved by the pension fund during December 2013.
The commingled fund has a regional strategy of investing capital primarily in large Texas markets in the US.
Pennybacker III is a value-added investment fund diversified across multiple property types.
Texas Teachers first invested in ‘emerging manager’ Pennybacker through its Credit Suisse Real Estate Emerging Manager fund-of-funds entity, committing $12m in 2011.
Texas Teachers has now committed $363m of a targeted $450m to its real estate and real assets emerging manager strategy.
Lastly, Norges Bank Investment Management and MetLife added two additional properties to its office building joint venture in the US.
The properties are the 782,000sqf 1255 12th Street property in Washington, DC, and the 945,000sqf 425 Market Street in San Francisco.
Norges bought a 47.5% share in the two properties for $480m.
The gross value of the two properties is $1bn.
Karsten Kallevig, CIO for real estate at Norges, said: “With these two investments, we are expanding our joint venture with MetLife in line with our strategy and original intent.”
The investment in the property in San Francisco represents the first office building investment in that market by Norges.
In the JV, there are now a total of three properties.
The other asset is One Financial Center in Boston.
The value of the three assets combined is $1.7bn.
