US - The Ohio Police and Fire Pension fund has approved a $100m (€84m) allocation to the UBS Trumbull Property fund.

Ohio Police and Fire and its real estate consultant, the Townsend Group, said they had great confidence in the Trumbull fund, which has outperformed using a conservative strategy that includes low leverage, no forward commitments and little leasing risk. 

The amount of leverage employed in the fund is 18.6% through the end of 2009.

The one downside, they said, was the fact there was a deposit queue to get into the fund.

Pension fund officials said capital from Ohio Police and Fire was unlikely to be drawn down by the manager until some time in the fourth quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2011.

The open-ended Trumbull fund, managed by UBS Realty Investors, has a net asset value of $6.6bn, as at end-2009. 

The fund is 35% office, 24% apartments, 22% retail, 12% industrial and 7% hotels.

Through the end of April, the Ohio Police and Fire fund had a real estate portfolio valued at $646m. To date, it has invested 5.8% in the asset class, with a targeted allocation of 12%.

Ohio Police and Fire has made one other investment recently into another open-ended commingled fund, boosting its involvement in the JP Morgan Strategic Property fund from $67m to $100m.
 

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