NORTH AMERICA – The Employees Retirement System of Texas has approved new real estate commitments totalling $242m (€186m).
One of the commitments was an $80m allocation into the Madison International Real Estate Liquidity Fund V, a value-added fund focusing on Europe and the US.
Major cities will include Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, London and Amsterdam.
The fund's strategy is to invest in high-quality properties with strong current income but a chance to add value once the existing leases expire, or the properties need recapitalisation.
Property types include CBD office, retail and apartments.
Madison will not be taking any operational or debt-level risk on its investments.
Texas Employees also made $100m allocation into KTR Industrial Fund III, a value-add commingled fund.
The total equity being raised by the pension fund will not exceed $1bn.
The investment strategy is to invest in value-add industrial properties in the US.
The vast majority of the deals for the fund will be located in Los Angeles, New York/New Jersey, Chicago and Miami/South Florida.
The pension fund also committed $5m to Abacus Multifamily Partners II, $3m to Exeter Industrial Value Fund II, $7m to Pennybacker II and $7m to Singerman Real Estate Opportunity Fund I through its emerging manager programme.
Abacus is an apartment investor that does development joint ventures, turnarounds, rehabs and pre-sales.
Exeter is a value-add investor in industrial properties.
Pennybacker owns operational-heavy real estate, while Singerman is an opportunistic manager that invests in the main property types and student/senior housing.
