Virginia Retirement System has disclosed issuing a $125m (€113.2m) commitment to Penwood Real Estate Investment Management’s latest US value add fund.

Penwood told IPE Real Assets that the Penwood Select Industrial Partners VII fund raised half of its $500m hard cap target in February this year and expects to have a second close during the third quarter of 2023.

Penwood expects all the investors that invested in Partners VI, the predecessor fund in the series, to commit capital to Partners VII.

In 2021 Partners VI received a $125m committment from Virginia Retirement and a $100m each from the New York State Teachers Retirement System and State of Wisconsin Investment Board.

Like the previous funds in the series, Partners VI will focus on value-add assets located in the global gateway markets of Southern California and the markets that support the Port of New York/New Jersey.

Virginia Retirement also said has allocated $300m to a newly created internally managed real estate investment trust (REIT) portfolio known as Amherst and closed existing Montalto and Monroe REIT portfolios.

Amherst which will invest in domestic REITs is benchmarked against the MSCI USA Standard.

Montalto is a $520m portfolio with a an international REIT strategy and Monroe a $830m domestic REIT strategy.

Virginia Retirement has issued a new $300m commitment to VA-Pantheon Infrastructure III, a separate account that invests in infrastructure funds focused on developed markets.

The pension fund has also approved a $250m commitment to Oak Street Real Estate Capital VI to invest in net-leased real estate assets.

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