California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento, investment...

California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento, investment committee on Monday will recommend that the $155 billion system commit $250 million to new alternative partnerships. These are: $100 million to Mountain Capital, which will focus on buyouts in education and communication and which would allow CalPERS to be the lead charter investor; $100 million to Thomas Weisel Capital Partners, which invests in technology growth companies; and $50 million to MKL Group, a new venture investment firm in which CalPERS will be the lead investor. At the meeting, the CalPERS real estate department will present an analysis of its REIT program, which began in 1998. For the year ended June 30, CalPERS’ REIT program returned 19.8%, beating its benchmark index, which returned only 14% for the period, and the NCREIF index, which returned 12.6%.