UNITED STATES - The University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) plans to commit $400m (€309m) to global and opportunistic real estate investment strategies over the next 12 months.

UTIMCO will seek to commit the capital to several commingled real estate funds (although it may consider separate accounts) as part of its longer-term plans to assign $1.75bn in to property strategies over the next four years.

Mark Shoberg, senior director for real estate at UTIMCO, said the $400m would be directed towards "two investment themes".

"One is for opportunistic," he said. "This is where we think the capital can be put to use the best, given the current state of the real estate sector. We also will be looking at investments that have an international focus."

UTIMCO intends to commit $400m during the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013, and plans to invest similar volumes over the three subsequent 12-month periods.

The aim is to bring the $19.2bn endowment's current 4.1% real estate exposure closer to its target allocation of 5.1% over that time.

UTIMCO, which manages its real estate investment programme internally without the aid of a consultant, will seek commitments to funds of between $25m and $100m, with a preference for ticket sizes of $50-75m.

The endowment made six real estate fund commitments during the previous 12 months, amounting to $357m, including a $47m commitment to the NIAM Nordic V, which invests opportunistically in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

UTIMCO also committed $50m to global opportunity fund Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII and $100m to US opportunity fund Wheelock Street Real Estate Fund.

The endowment also invests in real estate investment trusts (REITs) through Morgan Stanley and European Investors, but there are no plans to increase exposure.

"At this time we are not planning, as part of our real estate investing going forward, to put some additional capital into the REIT sector," Shoberg said.

Meanwhile, The State Universities System of Illinois is looking to invest $100-150m with new real estate managers to help diversify its core property exposure.

The pension fund will issue a request for proposal next month through its real estate consultant Callan Associates and hopes to be able to select successful managers by February 2013.

Illinois State Universities already has a $232m holding in the UBS Trumbull Property Fund and a $115m investment in RREEF America II.

The $13.6bn pension plan currently has a 7.2% exposure to real estate, below its target allocation of 10%.

"We would like to add one or two managers to our line-up," said Daniel Allen, CIO at Illinois State Universities. "The main reason for this is to achieve diversification within the core part of our real estate portfolio."

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) is also looking for a second manager to oversee part of a $1.84bn US apartment investment programme.

The pension fund is looking to appoint another manager to Institutional Multi-family Partners, which is currently being managed solely by GID. The new manager would focus on markets in the western region of the US.

Institutional Multifamily Partners delivered double digit returns: 28.2% for the current quarter and 36.1% over the past 12 months.

In an August board meeting, CalPERS announced it had allocated more than $500m to Institutional Multifamily Partners.

The partnership was previously known as Western Multifamily and was managed by BlackRock Realty until October 2012 when it was transferred to GID.

Most recent figures show CalPERS has $2.07bn of real estate investments, amounting to 10.5% of total assets under management.

Topics