Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association, Pasadena, Calif., committed up to $200 million to buyout fund Blackstone Capital Partners VII, said David Kushner, chief investment officer for the $49 billion pension fund, in an e-mail.
LACERA has invested with Blackstone Group in five prior Blackstone Capital Partners funds.
Blackstone is targeting $15 billion for the latest fund, with a $17 billion hard cap. Blackstone executives expect the new fund to make equity investments of $200 million to $900 million each in large-cap, midcap and growth buyout transactions in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Separately, LACERA’s board adopted assumptions and constraints proposed by its general investment consultant Wilshire Associates to be used in the 2015 asset-liability valuation study. Some of the assumptions for purposes of the study include constraining real estate to no more than its current weight of 11%, private equity to 10%, and 5% each for commodities and hedge funds.
LACERA’s current target allocation is 25% domestic equities, 24% international equities, 23% fixed income, 11% private equity, 10% real estate, 3% commodities, and 2% each hedge funds and cash.
LACERA could adopt a new asset allocation as early as July and an implementation plan as early as September.
