Japan’s ¥151trn (€1.19trn) Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) has called for applications from infrastructure and real estate fund-of-funds managers as it seeks to expand its exposure to global alternative asset classes.

The world’s largest pension fund, which is aiming to boost its real assets exposure from 1% to 5%, has announced requests for proposals for separate accounts covering infrastructure, real estate and private equity “inside and outside Japan”.

It is seeking exposure to core and brownfield infrastructure on a global basis, and core real estate in Japan, Europe and North America, as well as global private equity strategies.

GPIF has introduced an investment manager registration system for alternative assets “to collect information of various investment strategies and to have more flexibility on manager selection and to have access to new investment idea and expertise of asset managers”.

Applicants must have assets under management of at least from ¥100bn, derived from domestic and foreign pension funds.

GPIF has not set a deadline for applications, and said it would review applications “as needed”.

Earlier this year, the pension fund issued a request for information for investment managers specialising in emerging-markets infrastructure. In 2018, it awarded its first global real estate mandate.

Its current list of infrastructure managers includes StepStone Infrastructure & Real Assets and Pantheon.

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