Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) has become the latest US state pension fund to commit to AEW Capital Management’s third pan-Asia value-added fund.
Florida SBA told IPE Real Assets that it has for the first time invested in the AEW Asia fund series, putting a $100m (€83.2m) into AEW Value Investors Asia III.
The move is to help the pension fund to diversify its real estate portfolio, it said.
The contribution from Florida SBA will add to the $100m invested by California State Teachers’ Retirement System and Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association’s $50m contribution.
It was reported in December last year that AEW expected to raise $750m and reach a final close in March 2018. The fund has a hard cap of $850m.
According to sources that track fundraising, the fund had raised $512m at the end of 2017.
AEW has declined a request for comment.
Most of the capital for the fund will be invested in office and retail assets with potentially some in residential. The fund will be mostly investing in the gateway markets of Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney.
Florida SBA said it has also completed four separate account investments totalling $312m during the first quarter of 2018.
A separate account with Stockbridge Capital Group bought the 502,358sqft Three Alliance office building in Atlanta for $268m and also bought, via a joint venture, the 332-unit Skyhouse apartment complex in Dallas for $31m.
Heitman also completed a $7m investment in a 476-unit iStorage-Somerset self-storage property in Bridgewater, New Jersey, and made a $6m investment in a 25,593sqft office building in Norfolk, Virginia.
