Cook County Employees’ & Officers’ Annuity & Benefit Fund and the Forest Preserve District Employees’ Annuity & Benefit Fund of Illinois have jointly issued a request for proposal for a single core or core-plus real estate fund manager to invest a combined $165.3m (€144.9m).
The Cook County Employees fund is contributing $160m to the mandate, with the remaining $5.3m coming from the Forest Preserve fund.
The search, which is being conducted with assistance from investment consultant Callan, is limited to managers with an existing open-ended core or core-plus real estate fund.
Cook County Employees is planning on having a finalist presentation made to its investment committee in late November of 2026.
Interested fund managers are expected to match or outperform the NFI-ODCE index over a five- to 10-year period.
At the end of 2025, Cook County held $15.1bn in total plan assets. The allocation will form part of the pension fund’s real estate portfolio, which has a 9% target allocation.
Interested managers must submit their proposals by 26 June.
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