Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund is investing $100m (€93.7m) in Blackstone’s latest Asian real estate fund.
The pension fund confirmed to IPE Real Estate that it had approved the commitment to Blackstone Real Estate Partners Asia II, alongside an investment in another fund, Dune Real Estate Fund IV.
Blackstone and Dune Real Estate Partners did not comment.
Blackstone is looking to raise around $5bn for its fund, according to sources familiar with the matter.
It raised $5.1bn for its first Asia fund in 2013, delivering a net return to investors of 17%.
The new fund will invest across the region, including China and India, targeting mainly retail and industrial assets.
It expects to make portfolio deals, purchase individual assets and also invest in real estate operating companies.
Illinois Municipal is also committing $50m to Dune Real Estate Partners’ latest value-add/opportunistic fund.
The fund aims to take a contrarian approach to take advantage of oversold markets or assets, making both debt and equity investments.
Investments are expected to take place in the retail, industrial and residential markets in the US.
Illinois Municipal considers both commitments to be follow-on investments. It already has $450m and $75m invested with Blackstone and Dune, respectively.
The pension fund can still invest more capital in real estate before it reaches its 8% target allocation for the asset class.
Real estate represents 5.5% of the investor’s $36.2bn of total assets.
