The Maine Public Employees Retirement System (Maine PERS) is investing in a US infrastructure fund managed by two former Blackstone executives.
The US pension fund is backing private equity firm Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners’ second fund.
Trent Vichie and Michael Dorrell, who previously ran Blackstone’s infrastructure investment group, created Stonepeak in 2011.
Maine PERS has committed $150m (€132m) to the fund, focused on the North American water and utilities, energy and transportation sectors.
The fund is investing in the $50m-200m range, aiming for IRRs of around 15%.
Maine PERS also made a $30m allocation to Rubenstein Properties’s Fund III, which typically co-invests up to at least 15% of total capital commitments to the fund.
Fund III is investing in Eastern US office properties, focusing on value-add assets in need of renovation or similar repositioning.
Investments could involve assets with moderate to high vacancy or in need of recapitalising.
Targeted IRR for Fund III is projected to be 12-15%, with 65% leverage on the fund.
Maine PERS has also approved a $50m commitment to KKR’s Real Estate Partners Europe.
Andrew Sawyer, CIO at the pension fund, said: “We view European real estate as a good diversifier to our current real estate portfolio.”
KKR declined to comment on the fund manager’s first real estate fund, which is solely targeting investments in Europe.
