Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana has approved a $400m (€338.4m) commitment to the Morgan Stanley Prime Property Fund, a core open-ended US fund which has consistently outperformed the ODCE index.

The pension fund disclosed the capital commitment in its meeting document, in which Morgan Stanley states that the Prime Property Fund has a $1.25bn and $1.1bn entry and exit queue respectively.

According to sources that track the movement on large investors in core real estate funds, the size of the commitment from the public pension fund to the fund is rare given current market conditions.

The sources said most of the investors are waiting another quarter to see how the economy recovers from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic before placing large amounts of capital into the core real estate sector.

Louisiana Teachers declined a request for further comment.

The Prime Property Fund has outperformed the ODCE index for the second quarter of this year and for the one, three, five, seven and 10-year time periods.

So far this year, 86% of the fund’s total acquisition volume of around $400m has been invested in the industrial sector.

As at the end of last year, the fund had 22.1% of its assets invested in industrial properties compared with 20.3% for the ODCE Index.

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.