Illinois Firefighters Pension Investment Fund (FPIF) has made its infrastructure investment debut with a $150m (€137.4m) commitment to open-ended IFM Investors and KKR funds.

The pension fund has made an $80m commitment to the KKR Diversified Core Infrastructure Fund and placed $70m into the IFM Global Infrastructure Fund, according to people familiar with the matter. 

KKR has valued its assets in the Core Fund at $9.5bn, according to the manager’s 2024 second-quarter earnings report. The fund, which targets existing projects, assets, and businesses in OECD countries, so far has total commitments of $10.2bn.

The IFM fund, which targets either core-plus or value-add investments, aims for net internal rates of return in the range of 8% to 12%.

Illinois FPIF has also made a $250m commitment to CBRE US Core Partners, CBRE Investment Management’s open-ended core US real estate fund. 

CBRE IM declined a request for comment. The manager’s core open-ended fund was valued at $6.8bn as of February, according to SEC filings. 

Illinois FPIF

Illinois FPIF’s recent commitments follow its requests for proposals (RFP) for up to $675m in core real estate and infrastructure investments. The $8.8bn pension fund previously had no infrastructure exposure and a sole private real estate holding: the US Property Account managed by Principal Real Estate Investors.

Illinois FPIF was created in 2019 after a consolidation of municipal police and fire pension plans outside the city of Chicago into the Illinois Police Officers’ Pension Investment Fund.

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