Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) has expanded its real estate manager lineup with the hiring of Torchlight Investors.

The pension made a $250m (€213.4m) commitment to the Torchlight Debt Fund VII fund and told IPE Real Assets that it has “been conducting due diligence on Torchlight for years and believe they are one of the best real estate credit firms out there”.

“The recession has provided interesting investment opportunities that did not exist prior to the start of the recession,” Florida SBA said.

Fund VII is planning a $1.5bn fundraise with a $2bn hard-cap to target traditional property types as well as hotels and student housing in the US. Torchlight’s predecessor fund raised $1.7bn in July last year. Torchlight expects the fund to achieve 10% to 12% net internal rate of return.

Florida SBA said it has also made a €75m commitment to CapMan Real Estate’s third Nordic value-add fund as “the manager has shown good performance in previous funds that we have invested in”

According to the fund’s manager, the CapMan Nordic Fund III fund raised €313m at its initial close in September and remains on track to achieve its €500m target before the year-end.

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.