UNITED STATES - Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board has selected a new real estate consultant and added an office building to its real estate portfolio.

The pension fund appointed Callan Associates as its new real estate consultant following its 8 October board meeting, replacing The Townsend Group, which had been its real estate consultant for several years.

Mass PRIM has also recently paid $28.8m (€21.2m) for the Torre Plaza office building in Cupertino, California - part of the office market in San Jose - to sit inside its value-added portfolio.

The pension fund views this property as a Class B property so is to improve the asset over time through re-leasing, new management or a capital improvement programme.

Mass PRIM acquired the property through its separate account real estate manager, RREEF, the only manager this pension fund works with when it come to direct value-add real estate purchases.

The pension fund had allocated $100m to value-added acquisitions for 2008 and to date there have been two purchases totalling $55.6m.

Mass PRIM is looking at investing in the four main property types of office, industrial, retail and apartments in a variety of markets around the United States.

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