TRS invests in PE, eyes opportunistic real estate

The $30 billion Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois (TRS) will commit up to $1.2 billion to private equity, and will focus on opportunistic investments in real estate including emerging manager initiatives, as it aims to reach its new long-term allocations in those sectors by year end.

In real estate, where there is also a search underway for a consultant, the fund has a new strategic target of 14 per cent.

In private equity the new allocation will see an increase from 8 to 10 per cent of the fund, and the board has approved a tactical plan for the fiscal year that calls for commitments of between $700 million and $1.2 billion during the next year.

TRS hired an alternative investments officer, Zak Doehla, in June who will oversee the private equity portfolio which includes nearly 70 private equity relationships.

The fund has undergone a number of organisational changes, with a new law enacted in the summer which terminated the employment of TRS executive director, Jon Bauman, a provision that the fund was not consulted about in the final days before the law was approved.

Sponsored Content

The chief investment officer, Stan Rupnik, is acting exective director and there is a search underway for a permanent executive director under search firm, Hudepohl & Associates.

That law also saw the termination of three trustees, and six new trustees have been appointed.

The fund is also looking for a global macro and global large cap manager.

Leave a Comment

Sort content by

Poll results: Do CIOs of US public pension funds get paid adequately?

  mrec4inarticleinline Sponsored Content scnative1 scnative2 scnative3

The Caisse, Future Fund into infrastructure

Two of the world’s biggest institutional investors have recently made significant forays into Australian infrastructure, seeing opportunities in the country across a wide array of assets. Canada’s second largest pool of pension assets, la Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (the Caisse), has made a $139.2-million investment in five projects. Macky Tall, the fund’s

Cal pension reforms set to pass

Governor of California, Edmund G Brown Jr, has announced proposed legislation that outlines sweeping reforms to the state’s pension system, but appears to have stepped back from a proposal to create a hybrid pension plan. The hybrid defined-contribution/defined-benefit plan was proposed last year when Brown launched a 12-point reform package. It was widely opposed by

DB plans continue to slide

The funded status of US defined-benefit corporate-pension plans continued to worsen last year, despite plan sponsors increasing contributions by $70 billion, a new Mercer study reveals. Mercer found funding levels have slipped to 2009 levels, with the outlook for 2012 likely to extend the bleak news for plan sponsors. The funded status of pension plans

Super standard risk measure

Australian superannuation funds are now required to disclose a measurement of risk to fund members, with trustees encouraged to use a standardised measurement backed by regulators and industry peak bodies. The Standard Risk Measure will provide a rating of a fund’s investment option based on the likely number of negative returns this option is predicted

Robert Merton: the individual plan man

A retirement solution that focuses on outcomes and is customised for each participant cannot be met by existing defined-contribution designs, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist, Robert Merton, who advocates a “next-generation DC solution”. Merton, who is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management’s distinguished professor of finance and resident scientist at Dimensional Fund

Previous