Kansas Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is considering allocating $600m (€548.3m) for real estate investments in 2024, according to the pension fund’s board meeting document prepared by its real estate investment consultant.

The Townsend Group outlined that the potential commitments during the period, which would all be placed into funds, involve placing up to $250m into core strategies and up to $350m into non-core (value-add and opportunistic) strategies.

Kansas PERS did not make any commitments to core real estate funds in 2023. The pension fund’s most recent and final commitment for 2023 was a $75m commitment to Oaktree Real Estate Opportunities Fund IX,  Oaktree Capital Management’s latest opportunistic real estate fund.

Kansas PERS, which conducted a search to identify a new real estate investment manager for its yield-driven portfolio, has concluded the search without hiring a new manager.

The pension fund decided not to hire a new manager due to concerns about overlapping investments with its current real estate investment trust (REIT) manager, CenterSquare. Around 80% and 90% of the two finalist managers’ portfolios were already represented in CenterSquare’s portfolio.

Kansas PERS has no plans to conduct another REIT manager search at this time.

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