New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (NMERB) has agreed to issue a $100m (€98.4m) commitment to its existing core-plus real estate debt separate account relationship with Raith Capital Partners.

NMERB hired Raith Capital in May 2020 with a $50m commitment to target commercial mortgage-backed securities, leveraged buyouts, mezzanine and subordinated debt backed against US real estate.

At the time, the strategy was said to target gross returns of between 10% and 12%.

Mark Canavan, director of NMERB’s real return group said: “Raith has shown thoughtful execution with our initial capital and we felt strongly that they should be awarded an additional allocation.”

According to the pension fund, the separate account has yielded a one-quarter return of 16.15%, a fourth-quarter 2021 return of 14.25% and an 11.78% return since inception.

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