Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System has selected Brookfield Investment Management, CenterSquare Investment Management and Duff & Phelps Investment Management Company as finalists for its REIT manager search.
The pension fund will conduct additional due diligence before making a final decision, which is anticipated to be completed during the third quarter.
The three managers are vying for LA City’s $65m REIT allocation, which has been created by a reduction in the pension fund’s domestic equity and fixed income exposures.
All of the three REIT finalists have proposed a US-only REIT strategy. Bryan Fujita, investment officer in the investment division for LA City, stated in a board meeting document that this was primarily due to better risk-adjusted performance and longer track records relative to global REIT strategies.
The pension fund is looking to deploy an active long-only investment strategy that would seek to outperform the FTSE NAREIT All Equity Index by 100bps over three-five year market cycles.
New Jersey Division of Investment is raising its real estate allocation from 3.2% to 4.25% as part of its investment plan for 2014-15.
Christopher Santarelli, deputy director of communications for the New Jersey Treasury Department, told IP Real Estate that the pension fund would be targeting real estate commitments of between $500m (€367m) and $750m over the 12-month period.
According to board meeting documents, New Jersey continues to see opportunities in private real assets, particularly in non-major property markets in the US and global real estate.
The pension fund will consider investments across the risk spectrum, including core, value-added and opportunistic, and will look at a mixture of commingled funds and separate accounts.
New Jersey has a history of investing in real estate on a global basis. It already has exposure in the US, Europe and Asia. Its most recent investment was a €50m commitment to Meyer Bergman European Retail Partners II.
At the end of April, the pension fund had a real estate portfolio valued at $3bn and total plan assets of $161bn.
JP Morgan Asset Management has acquired its first retail property in Hawaii.
The 322,000 sqft Royal Hawaiian Center in Waikiki was acquired for more than $500m for the JP Morgan Strategic Property Fund, according to industry sources.
Chris Graham, managing director at JP Morgan, said: “We think that this property is one of the strongest performing retail properties in Hawaii.
“There also is the belief that its location is comparable to the other major retail locations in the US. These would include Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and Union Square in San Francisco.”
The fund had an entry queue of approximately $1.5bn before the deal in Hawaii was completed.
The high street-located shopping centre includes tenants Forever 21, Cheesecake Factory, Hermes and Tory Burch. The property was 90% occupied when the asset was acquired.
