Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund (OPERF) has made a $250m (€221.1m) investment into a newly created US property separate account relationship with DivcoWest.
The $76.6bn pension fund said in a meeting document that the separate account will have a core-plus investment strategy.
Oregon PERF defines core plus assets as properties where the pension fund can achieve returns that are 50 to 100 basis points higher than where core returns are.
The separate account expects to achieve returns in the range of 9% to 10% on a levered basis. The amount of leverage planned on the account is approximately 45%.
Anthony Breault, senior real estate investment officer for Oregon Investment Council, said Oregon PERF has “a great working relationship” with DivcoWest and has previously invested a total of $350m into DivcoWest Fund IV and V.
”This manager has great access to technology tenants that will occupy creative office buildings in many markets throughout the country,” Breault said.
As reported this year, DivcoWest agreed a real estate separate-account relationship with Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board (Mass PRIM) and also has a relationship California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS).
“In the process of setting up our new relationship with them, we were in contact with both Mass PRIM and CalSTRS to make sure that our investment strategies would be different and we would not be competing for transactions,” said Breault.
DivcoWest declined a request for comment.
Oregon PERF said it has also approved a $300m commitment into Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX fund, which could raise as much as $20bn before the end of year.
The pension fund previously backed Blackstone’s VI and VII funds.
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