NORTH AMERICA – The New Mexico Educational Retirement Board is planning to invest $505m (€373.5m) into real estate between now and 2016.
The amounts will be $205m this year and $100m each for 2014, 2015 and 2016.
In 2013, the investment strategy is going to be split into two sectors, with $80m invested in non-core and the balance in core investing.
The first part of the non-core bucket was a $50m commitment into the Crow Holdings Realty Partners VI commingled fund, managed by Crow Family Holdings.
The pension fund wrote in a board-meeting document that it believes the current economic environment is ripe for value-added investment due to an ongoing dynamic in the loan capacity available to finance commercial real estate.
The projected total capital raise for Partners VI is $750m.
Crow Family Holdings will be investing $75m of its capital to the fund as a co-investment.
This commingled fund is being marketed as a value-added fund that will only be investing in real estate in the US.
From a property type standpoint, the fund will be weighted more towards apartments, convenience and gas stores and industrial properties, with less emphasis on office and retail.
The improvements made to the properties will include increasing net operating income through rollover of existing leases, lease-up of current vacancies and rebalancing the current tenant mix.
The fund can invest in real estate through any combination of equity or debt.
New Mexico has a targeted allocation for real estate of 5%.
Through the end of 2012, it had invested $190m in the asset class, or 49% of its target.
