GLOBAL - The San Francisco City and County Employees' Retirement System has decided to withdraw a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) search for a new separate account real estate manager.
Pension fund officials said they took the action at the fund's 9 November board meeting because Don Holcher, who oversees real estate investing, recently had emergency appendectomy surgery and would be out of commission for several months.
San Francisco City and County issued the RFQ in June of this year.
So far, 16 companies have responded, including American Realty, BlackRock, Buchanan, CB Richard Ellis Investors, Cheswold, Colony Capital, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, DivcoWest Properties, GE Capital, Heitman, Kennedy Associates Real Estate Counsel, Pacific Union, PCCP, Stockbridge, TA Associates Realty and USAA.
These companies will now need to re-apply with up-to-date asset management information when the search is reinitiated next year.
San Francisco now has existing separate account relationships with RREEF, INVESCO Real Estate and TRECAP.
However, only two of the accounts are active. New investments in the TRECAP relationship have been placed on hold since the beginning of 2009.
San Francisco City and County still has room in its real estate portfolio for additional investments. As at 30 June, it had a real estate portfolio valued at $1.2bn (€880m), or roughly 8.6% of its $13.1bn of total plan assets in real estate.
The targeted allocation for real estate is 12%.
