New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) is boosting its exposure to European real estate markets by investing in Blackstone’s latest European opportunistic real estate fund.
The pension fund told IPE Real Assets that it has approved a $100m (€90.2m) commitment to Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe VI, a fund close to raising $10bn.
Blackstone declined a request for comment.
Only 4.9% of the pension fund’s $13.1bn real estate portfolio is made up of European investments.
NYSTRS is close to reaching its 11% target allocation to the asset class, with real estate making up 10.6% of its overall portfolio – although it is permitted to range between 6% and 16%.
The pension fund has also extended the contracts of four global real estate investment trust (REIT) managers by another 12 months.
Between them, Heitman Real Estate Securities, Brookfield Asset Management, AEW Capital Management and Dimensional Fund Advisors, manage a $957m REIT porfolio benchmarked against the FTSE EPRA/NAREIT Developed Unhedged Index.
