Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System, Des Moines, hired KKR & Co. and PGIM as strategic private corporate debt and private commercial real estate debt partners, respectively, according to a summary of the pension fund's board meeting Thursday.
The appointments are pending final contract negotiations and due diligence.
Final allocation sizes and funding sources could not immediately be learned.
In May, the pension fund issued an RFP for private corporate debt and private commercial real estate debt managers to manage a total of $750 million.
Looking ahead, the $32.1 billion pension fund approved committing approximately $1.2 billion total on behalf of its private markets portfolio in 2018. Under the pacing plan approved at Thursday's meeting, IPERS' discretionary private equity manager Pathway Capital Management will commit up $750 million total to private equity funds. IPERS will also commit up approximately $300 million to private corporate debt, $150 million to private real estate debt and about $10 to $40 million to private real assets (timberland and farmland) in 2018.
Separately, IPERS reported it paid $68.06 million in investment management fees in the fiscal year ended June 30, up 12% from fiscal year 2016, according to the board meeting summary. The increase was primarily driven by higher incentive fee payments as many active managers outperformed their benchmarks over the year, the summary said.