Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System (SCERS) is planning to make $270m (€261m) worth of investments in its real assets and real estate portfolios next year.
The $12bn pension fund said in a meeting document that it expects to invest $190m in real assets and make $80m worth of real estate investments in 2023.
For real assets investments, SCERS intends to issue commitments of around $50m each into up to six funds. The pension fund’s plan during the period includes making follow-on investments with existing managers/strategies, pan-Asia infrastructure and environmentally-driven strategies such as de-carbonisation and energy transition, and agriculture.
Steve Davis, SCERS CIO, said: “Pan-Asia economies are expected to grow faster than Europe and North America. Coupled with few institutional managers focusing on pan-Asia infrastructure, there is less competition for transactions affording potential better relative returns.”
SCERS said the amount set aside for real estate investment is expected to be invested in up to four funds. The pension fund’s plan involves evaluating Asia core/core-plus and value-add strategies. SCERS will also consider investing in refrigerated logistics and cold storage assets globally.
Davis said: “In refrigerated logistics, there is outsized demand coupled with undersupply. In the US, the average age of cold storage is over 30 years old and is now only gaining institutional investor interest.
“In Asia, there are far fewer cold storage facilities but consumer demand is outsized, offering a potentially better risk-reward profiled compared to the US.”
SCERS also disclosed in the meeting document that it is planning to rebalance the pension fund’s US open-ended portfolio to help bring the strategy and geographical mixes within targeted ranges.
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