Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) of New Mexico is investing up to $75m (€63m) into Ardian’s latest Americas-focused infrastructure fund and $25m via a sidecar investment.

The investment will give the pension fund complimentary exposure to the Ardian’s existing infrastructure portfolio, which is slightly tilted towards Europe and primarily focused on core/brownfield assets.

In a meeting document, the pension fund said it has approved the $75m to be placed in the Ardian Americas Infrastructure Fund V fund, while the other commitment is being placed into Mass Ascension, a co-investment vehicle that could invest alongside Ardian’s infrastructure funds IV or V.

Fund V plans on investing in the US and other American OECD markets. The fund will mostly target middle-market brownfield and greenfield assets in a cross-section of sectors like energy, power, battery storage, renewables, telecom and transportation.

The targeted returns for the fund are a 10% to 13% net internal rate of returns over the life of the fund, with a 6% to 7% per annum target cash yield.

New Mexico PERA said in the meeting document that it intends to place capital into the single-family rental sector as part of the pension fund’s value-add private real estate portfolio. The pension fund is also considering an investment into a multi-family core-plus fund.

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