UNITED STATES - Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund has altered its 2008 real estate strategy and will now be investing in core real estate this year, as previously planned.

None of the $62m (€42.5m) allocated earlier this year for core/stable investments will be invested in this strategy in 2008 as officials at Ohio Police and Fire believe there currently no investment opportunities in the core sector and this is unlikely to change by the end of the year.

There has been a lot of uncertainty in the core real estate this year on, both the buying and selling of real estate, so the pension fund decided at its 27 August board meeting to instead invest in the value-added or opportunistic sectors over the next three months.

The pension fund now has just $29m left to place in the market, as $75m of its original $104m allocation was invested earlier this year. (See earlier IPE Real Estate stories: Ohio Police & Fire commits to high return fund and Ohio Police & Fire invest $162m in real estate)

The remaining money will be invested in commingled funds with either a value-added or opportunistic strategy.

Ohio Police and Fire had a real estate portfolio valued at $1bn to the end of July, and now amounts to 8.5% of its $11.68bn of total assets has been invested in the real estate asset class.

The pension fund will be spending the rest of 2008 working on a new investment strategy for its new real estate target of 12%. (See earlier IPE Real Estate story: Ohio Fire & Police up real estate allocation by 50%)

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