New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (NMERB) has increased its exposure to European logistics real estate because it believes there are better investment opportunities in the region than in its domestic market.
The pension fund has made a $50m (€50.7m) follow-on commitment to the Realterm Europe Logistics Fund, having committed $50m when the fund was launched in 2019 and another $50m in 2021.
Mark Canavan, director of the real return group at NMERB, told IPE Real Assets: “With the small road sizes in many European cities and the fragmented nature of the European logistics market, the opportunity in Europe would be better than the US, which has already seen a significant build-out and initial stages of consolidation.”
US-headquartered Realterm raised €100m for its debut European logistics fund in 2020. It focuses on what it terms high-flow-through logistics assets, which are designed primarily for the movement of goods rather than storage.
NMERB also committed $100m to a Edgewood Partners III, a vehicle that will co-invest in real assets that could include real estate, timber, agriculture, water, environmental restoration and energy.
The pension fund has full control over investment decisions and Edgewood Partners will manage administration and underwriting.
NMERB has a similar arrangement in infrastructure through CBRE Caledon Andromeda Investments III, managed by CBRE Investment Management.
The pension fund has approved a new $15m commitment to the co-investment vehicle after originally committing $100m.
NMERB also committed $50m to NOVA Infrastructure Fund I. NOVA Infrastructure raised $565m for the fund earlier this year to invest in value-add infrastructure in North America.
