Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, Oak Brook, on Friday committed a total of €125 million ($142 million) to three European open-end core real estate funds.
The board of the $34.7 billion pension fund approved committing €50 million each to CBRE Global Investors’ Pan European Core Fund and Invesco Real Estate’s European Fund, and €25 million to Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers’ European Core Fund.
An RFP was issued May 23.
All three managers currently manage assets in other real estate funds for IMRF.
Jonathan Gould, assistant vice president-real assets at Callan Associates, the pension fund’s investment consultant, told the board’s investment committee that IMRF and Callan closely looked at the June 23 Brexit vote in the U.K., which took place after the RFP was issued. However, they considered the commitments as taking advantage of long-term opportunities rather than being hurt by short-term impacts of Brexit.
Dhvani Shah, IMRF’s chief investment officer, said the pension fund is looking to expand its international real estate suballocation, currently at 2.2% of its actual real estate allocation.
The pension fund had a 5.4% actual allocation to real estate as of June 30, with a target of 8%.
The board also approved a commitment of up to $20 million to Versant Venture Capital VI, managed by Versant Ventures, which focuses on early stage North American and European health-care companies. It’s the second commitment by IMRF to a Versant fund; it previously committed $15 million to Versant Venture Capital V.
IMRF had a 4% allocation to alternatives as of June 30, with a 9% target.
