UNITED STATES - Wisconsin State Investment Board has made two follow-on commitments to commingled funds, in a bid to preserve capital during the market downturn.

A $10m (€7.6m) allocation has been made to the Fortress Investment Fund III as well as $30m to Centerline High Yield CMBS Fund III Bridge Loan, as pension fund officials thinks managers have the capability to produce enhanced returns on a long-term basis.

Both the Fortress Group and Centerline Capital are raising additional equity for their commingled funds to cover some debt issues that they are currently dealing with.

It's a situation many opportunity and structured finance commingled funds, when invested between 2005 to 2008, are now facing as there is very little debt in the marketplace and these managers need to raise additional equity to lower the debt component in their commingled funds.

Wisconsin made an earlier $100m commitment to Fortress Fund III in 2004 as well as $50m to Centerline's US CMBS Fund III in 2007

Fortress Group is now in the process of raising $80m in new equity to lessen its debt issues on the Fund III opportunity package.

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