Maine Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) intends to withdraw the $175m (€159.9m) it has invested in Mesa West Core Lending, an open-ended US real estate debt fund.
Maine PERS, which issued a $100m commitment to Mesa West Core Lending in June 2013, disclosed in a meeting document that it had filed to redeem its capital from the fund.
According to Maine PERS, the interim net internal rate of return on its investment in the Core Lending fund was down from 6.2% at the end of 2022 to 5.7% as of the end of the first quarter of 2023.
Mesa West Capital declined to comment when contacted for this story.
Maine PERS’s investment in the Core Lending fund is held in the pension fund’s $1.6bn alternative credit portfolio. The portfolio, which amounts to 8.5% of the pension fund’s total plan assets, has a long-term allocation target of 10%.
Earlier this year, IPE Real Asset also reported that Maine PERS was also planning to redeem part of its investment in Blackstone’s core-plus open-ended US property fund to help balance the pension fund’s overweighted real estate portfolio. The pension fund was expected to urge its board to approve the issue of $150m from Blackstone Property Partners, according to a meeting document at the time.
According to the latest meeting document, the pension fund’s investment in the Blackstone fund is currently valued at $443m. The fund recorded an interim net return of 5.6% as of the first quarter of the year.
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