REAL ESTATE - New York State Teachers Retirement System has approved investments up to $105m (€81m) in two commingled funds. These actions were taken by the pension fund at its board meeting at the end of July.

One of the investments was a commitment of up to $50m to the ING Real Estate China Opportunity Fund. The fund manager for this entity is Clarion Partners.

This is a commingled fund that will be looking to invest in a variety of real estate investment opportunities in China. The pension fund is anticipating that it will achieve opportunistic kind of returns in this fund. This typically means around a 20% leveraged IRR. This year assumes a three- to seven-year holding period.

NYSTRS has chosen to invest in this commingled fund to achieve another layer of diversification within its real estate portfolio. The pension fund has invested in other commingled funds that have the authority to invest in China. One of these is the Macquarie Asia Fund II.

The pension fund has chosen to make an investment of up to $55m to the Rockpoint Finance Fund I. The real estate manager on this commingled fund is the Rockpoint Group, LLC.

This commingled fund has a mezzanine debt kind of investment strategy. It will be looking at investing in land that is targeted for land banking for single-family developers. The plan is to invest in parcels that are located in the major metropolitan areas across the country.

NYSTRS is projecting that it will achieve value-added kind of returns by investing in Rockpoint Finance Fund I. This normally results in a mid to high teens kind of leveraged IRR. A yield of this kind factors in a three-to seven-year holding period.