UNITED STATES - School Employees Retirement System of Ohio has selected Invesco Real Estate and ING Clarion Real Estate Securities as global Reit managers.

CBRE Global Real Estate Securities is the backup third manager as Ohio School Employees is said to be comfortable with the performance and services of all three managers, given its previous experience with them through a variety of closed- and open-ended commingled funds as well as separate account relationships.

The pension fund board has approved - assisted by its consultant Summit Strategies Group on May 23 - the transfer of 50% of its US-only REIT portfolio as of the transition date, or a minimum of $100m ($63.4m euros) - whichever is greater - to INVESCO.  The remaining sum will go to ING Clarion.

Its decision follows an RFP issued at the end of January to which 25 companies responded - containing a mixture of investment banks, real estate firms and boutique investment managers - and this search was eventually narrowed down to four managers for on-site due diligence.

Ohio School Employees believes investing in global Reits is a good way to diversify its real estate assets in part because it allows the investor to move into more companies and countries than would be achieved on a domestic basis.

The pension fund's global Reit commitment represents around 20% of the pension fund's real estate portfolio but is a key development as Ohio School Employees had previously only invested in international real estate through commingled funds.