Teacher Retirement System (TRS) of Texas is investing $250m (€213m) in Blackstone’s infrastructure fund and has confirmed its participation in a $2bn residential joint venture with Tricon Capital Group.
It is the third US pension fund to be reported by IPE Real Assets as an investor in the open-ended Blackstone Infrastructure Partners, which has support from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and is seeking to raise $40bn.
Blackstone, which declined a request for comment, has already secured $500m from Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System and $100m from the New Mexico State Investment Council.
TRS Texas confirmed the investment in the Blackstone fund to IPE Real Assets and said it was also committing $250m to a joint venture to invest in single-family homes, which was announced by Tricon last week.
Tricon did not reveal the identities of the two institutional investors involved, but industry sources say the other investor is GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund.
Using leverage and $750m of equity, the joint venture intends to acquire more than 10,000 single-family rental homes valued at $2bn, which will then be managed by Tricon’s American Homes platform.
TRS Texas, which has $146bn of assets, said it has recently approved two other commitments, including a $100m investment in a limited partnership called Dewback Infrastructure, which will target US infrastructure assets.
It is also committing $150m to Square Mile Credit Partners II-A, which invests in real asset debt in the US.
