NORTH AMERICA – The Teacher Retirement System of Texas has approved three real estate commitments over the past two months totalling $400m (€300m).

One of these was a $150m commitment into the CBRE Strategic Partners Value 6, managed CBRE Global Investors. The fund had a total capital raise of $1.1bn.

The real estate manager has already invested some of the capital, completing 11 deals with a total value of $900m, including a mixture of suburban and CBD office transactions and apartment acquisitions in Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Washington, DC.

CBRE said it was "unique" for the fund to have already placed much of the capital in the market. 

Vance Maddocks, president of Strategic Partners US, said: "It's rare for us to have invested one-third of the total capitalisation of the fund. This fact did help us have a very successful capital raise for the fund. Many investors like to see what they are placing their capital into."

Value 6 is to invest in existing properties that can be improved in the US. 

It will be target institutional-quality properties judged to have above-average return potential in highly rated major metropolitan markets. 

The strategies would include repositioning underperforming assets and improving properties' occupancy level through better management.

Texas Teachers also made a $100m commitment into the Square Mile Partners IV commingled fund, a debt oriented fund managed by Square Mile Capital Management.

Square Mile makes investments in real estate and related equity, debt and hybrid investments. 

The transactions for Partners IV will include the main property types of office, industrial, retail and apartments. 

The pension fund also invested $150m into the Alterna Core Capital Assets Fund II, which targets assets in the transportation, industrial and energy sectors.

All of these commitments are follow-on investments.