UNITED STATES - Sacramento County Employees' Retirement System has selected CB Richard Ellis Global Real Estate Securities as its international (ex-US) REIT manager.

The pension fund selected CBRE at its 19 September board meeting, assisted by Allison Yager at Mercer Investment Consulting, after beating off competition from finalist European Investors, said Jeff States, chief investment officer for Sacramento County.

"We liked the bottom-up and top-down investment approach that CB Richard Ellis will apply to our account. We think that this will lead to diversification within the investment program and have a good risk/reward ratio," said States.

"REITS are a good way to invest in international real estate. You can get access quickly with firms that have been investing in a country for a while. There also is the added benefit of having a daily update on the value of your portfolio."

The amount awarded to CB Richard Ellis for the search was $60m (€40.7m) which is a little more than the 0.1% of its $5.74bn of total plan assets.

The REIT manager relationship with CB Richard Ellis is structured as a separate account so the real estate manager has full investment discretion.

Sacramento County is also going to be considering additional international real estate investments in the future, as States added: "When we consider value-added or opportunistic commingled funds in the future, we will be taking a look at managers that have an international strategy."

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