June 07, 2018 01:00 AM

New York State Common allocates $938 million to 8 managers

Robert Steyer

New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany, made five private equity, two real estate and one opportunistic alternatives commitments totaling $938 million in April, according to a transaction report on the website of Thomas DiNapoli, state comptroller and sole trustee of the $206.9 billion pension fund.

The private equity commitments are:

$200 million to Siris Partners IV, managed by Siris Capital Group, which will make equity investments in middle-market technology companies.
$21 million to Sycamore Partners III, . Sycamore invests in middle-market and large-market branded retail and consumer products sectors.
$20 million to Argand Partners Fund, which concentrates on making control acquisitions of middle-market industrial and consumer businesses in North America and Europe.
$12 million to Anchor Equity Partners III, managed by Anchor Equity Partners (Asia), which focuses on investments in South Korea.
$10 million to Carmel Ventures V, managed by Viola Group, which will invest in early-stage technology companies in Israel.

Sycamore Partners and Argand Partners are new relationships. The pension previously committed to a Siris fund in 2012; an Anchor Equity Partners fund in 2015; and made two previous commitments to Viola.

The Sycamore, Argand, Anchor and Viola commitments were made through funds-of-funds vehicles. The Sycamore and Argand commitments were made through the pension system's emerging manager program.

In real estate, New York State Common made a $300 million follow-on commitment to Prologis Targeted U.S. Logistics Fund. Matthew Sweeney, a spokesman for Mr. DiNapoli, said in an email the pension fund made an initial commitment of $300 million last year. It is an open-end real estate fund that acquires, operates and sells logistics facilities.

Also, in real estate, the pension fund committed an additional $200 million to Blackstone Property Partners, managed by Blackstone Group.

The pension fund made an initial commitment of $500 million in September 2015, according to Mr. Sweeney. The Blackstone fund is an "open-end fund that invests in high-quality, well-leased assets in major U.S. markets," Mr. Sweeney wrote. "The investment allows the (pension fund) to more quickly deploy capital and to have that capital outstanding for a longer period of time than is possible in a typical closed-end fund structure."

Under the pension fund's opportunistic alternatives asset class, $175 million was committed to ADV Opportunities Fund II, managed by ADV Partners, which invests primarily in middle-market companies in China, India and southeast Asia.