The Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana has selected Hancock Agricultural Investment Group as a separate account manager for agriculture investments.
The US pension fund awarded the manager a $75m (€66.5m) allocation on the recommendation of its investment consultant Hamilton Lane.
Hancock has produced, on 18 different accounts with agriculture assets, a 12.5% gross IRR with a 1.8x gross multiple on $2.1bn of investments.
The separate account will focus on the US and Australia.
Up to a dozen investments will be made for the account, with deal sizes ranging between $6m and $7.5m.
Louisiana Teachers considered a second separate account commitment through a $300m allocation to Colony Capital’s Ground Lease Strategic Fund, but no action has been taken.
Colony Capital is co-investing 5% of total commitments.
It is looking to aggregate a diversified portfolio of ground lease positions or leased fee interests across several property types in the US.
Ground leases on the properties would range from 50 to 99 years.
A board meeting document from Louisiana Teachers stated that the separate account would target annualised net returns of around 12%.
The targeted annual dividend would be at least 7%, paid quarterly.
Colony Capital is planning to focus on all commercial and infrastructure properties, excluding unimproved land and single-family homes.
Between 15 and 20 investments are planned for the account.
Colony Capital is planning to invest in a mixture of primary and secondary markets, including the metropolitan areas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Austin and Denver.
