Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, Oak Brook, on Friday approved a total of up to $250 million in commitments to private equity, real estate and buyout funds.
The board approved private equity commitments of up to $100 million to Vista Equity Partners V, up to $50 million to ABRY Advanced Securities III, up to $30 million to Lightspeed Venture Partners X and up to $10 million to Lightspeed Venture Partners Select.
The pension fund has previous commitments to all three firms totaling $125 million.
Real estate fund CBRE Strategic Partners U.S. Value 7 received a commitment of up to $35 million; other CBRE funds have previous total commitments of up to $155 million.
IMRF also committed $5 million each to emerging manager middle-market buyout funds run by AUA Private Equity, Estancia Capital Partners, New Mainstream Capital, Valor Equity Partners and Vistria. All are new managers for IMRF.
Funding will come from reducing domestic equity portfolios; no managers will be terminated.
Separately, active U.S. large-cap growth equity manager Fortaleza Capital Partners, which manages $45 million for IMRF, was placed on watch for performance. Margarita Perez, Fortaleza president and chief investment officer, was unavailable for comment.
IMRF's total assets were $33.6 billion as of Feb. 26, said Dhvani Shah, CIO at Illinois Municipal. In a report from investment consultant Callan Associates, the pension fund returned 20.26% for 2013, driven by global equities. U.S. equities returned 37.6% and international stocks returned 20.24%. Fixed income returned -0.59%; real estate, 10.7%; and alternatives (absolute return, private equity, timber and agriculture), 13.6%.
The pension fund's actual asset allocation as of Dec. 31 was 45% U.S. equities, 26% fixed income, 21% international equities, 4% alternatives, 3% real estate and 1% cash. Its target asset allocation is 38% U.S. equity, 27% fixed income, 17% international equity, 9% alternatives, 8% real estate, and 1% cash.
