NORTH AMERICA – The Teacher Retirement System of Texas has expanded its emerging managers programme in the real asset category by making $30m (€22.1m) worth of new commitments to managers.
One of the commitments was a $15m allocation into the TriGate Property Partners II, a commingled fund managed by TriGate Property Partners.
The fund will acquire existing office, industrial and retail properties in the US that are underperforming due to broken capital structures.
Investors in the $350m investment fund are projected to achieve a 15% net IRR.
The other $15m commitment went into the Savanna Real Estate Partners II fund, projected to achieve a 13% net IRR.
Savanna, which will buy office buildings in New York and the Tri-State area along the East Coast of the US, is looking at a total capital raise of $500m.
The pension fund has established certain requirements for an emerging manager to qualify for the programme.
The manager must have less than $2bn of total assets under management or be involved in raising capital for its first, second or third institutional commingled fund.
Texas Teachers has created the emerging managers programme as a means of identifying in smaller investments and managers it might otherwise have been unable to access.
In other news, the New Mexico State Investment Council will be looking to place $150m-$200m into core real estate strategies in 2013, through either closed-end or open-ended commingled funds.
Vince Smith, deputy state investment officer, said: "When I came to New Mexico in 2010, we were all invested in opportunistic real estate. We are still working on putting the right amount into core strategies."
New Mexico is even looking at investing in a property-specific commingled fund for core.
"We could be considering investing some capital into a core fund that only invests in industrial properties," Smith added.
The investor has a long-term targeted allocation for real estate of 10%.
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