Arkansas Teachers earmarks $189 million for 5 funds

Arkansas Teacher Retirement System, Little Rock, committed $189 million to five alternatives funds and reallocated $385 million to two existing investment strategies, said Rod Graves, deputy director, in an email.

At its meeting Monday, the $17.3 billion pension fund agreed to commit up to €44 million ($49 million) to Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe VI, a European opportunistic real estate fund managed by the Blackstone Group.

It also committed $40 million each to Rockwood Capital Real Estate Partners Fund XI, a U.S.-focused value-added real estate fund, and Walton Street Real Estate Debt Fund II, a value-added real estate debt fund managed by Walton Street Capital.

Also at its meeting, the board agreed to commit $30 million each to Arlington Capital Partners V, a buyout fund specializing in small- to lower-middle-market companies in the U.S.; and DW Healthcare Partners V, a buyout fund that invests in expansion-stage companies in the health-care sector.

The board also agreed to reallocate $167 million to Allianz Global Investors' Structured Alpha Global Equity 350 strategy, which will bring its value to $428 million; and $218 million to a global equity index fund managed by BlackRock (BLK), bringing its total to $321 million. Funding will come from terminating Daruma Capital Management, which manages $385 million in a domestic small-cap equities strategy. The Daruma strategy was terminated to reduce the retirement system's small-cap exposure and to increase its exposure to global equities.

Investment consultant Aon Hewitt Investment Consulting assisted.

The retirement system also changed its current target allocation to private equity to 12% from 10%, and reduced its allocation to equities to 53% from its previous target of 55%, per the recommendation of Aon Hewitt.