NORTH AMERICA – The Kansas Public Employees Retirement System is planning to invest $140m (€105.3m) into real estate over the next several months.

The most immediate investment is a $40m allocation into the Harrison Street Real Estate Partners IV commingled fund, managed by Harrison Street Real Estate Capital.

The projected total capital raise for the fund is $700m. 

This will be the largest commingled fund for the Real Estate Partners fund series. 

The initial fund was formed in 2006 and raised $208.5m. Fund II was put together one year later with a $431.6m raise, while Fund III was closed in 2011 with equity commitments totalling $595.5m.

The funds are to invest in niche property types in the US, including medical office buildings, student housing, self-storage assets and senior housing/assisted living properties.

Kansas PERS will soon make final decision on its domestic REITs manager search. 

The amount of capital allocated for this search is $100m. 

The pension fund is now looking at finalists for this search, and it plans to bring the recommendations before the board at its 14 March investment committee meeting.

Kansas PERS has a real estate portfolio valued at $1.1bn as of 30 November 2012. 

The real estate assets make up 8.3% of the pension fund's total plan assets.

In other news, Texas County & District Retirement System has approved a €40m commitment into the Orion Europe Real Estate Fund IV commingled fund.

This is the second commingled fund commitment the pension fund has made in recent months. 

In November of last year, it approved a $50m commitment into the Rockpoint Real Estate Fund IV.

Texas District & County has a real estate portfolio valued at $826m, as of the end of September 2012. 

These are split into two sectors. It has $206m (1.1%) of its $19.26bn of total plan assets in private real estate and $620m (3.2%) in REITs.

The pension fund does have a little more room for capital to be invested in private real estate.

This part of the real estate portfolio has a targeted allocation of 2%. The REITs allocation is 3%.

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