real estate | Pension360

New York Teachers Pension Invests $140 Million in Retail, Office Properties

The New York State Teachers Retirement System (NYSTRS) has committed a total of $140 million to three real estate funds that invest in retail, office and apartment properties.

From IPE Real Estate:

The [New York State Teachers Retirement System] has committed $40m to the Edens Investment Trust alongside $50m allocations to Madison Realty Capital’s Debt Fund III and Rockpoint’s Core Plus Real Estate Fund.

The pension fund said Edens, which invests in retail properties in US Southeast and East Coast regions, is attractive due to its focus on grocery-anchored necessity retail, a sub-sector more economically resistant to market conditions.

“Our decision to provide additional growth capital is a reflection of Edens’ deep, seasoned development/redevelopment team with a proven track record over multiple cycles,” NYSTRS said.

The pension fund has now invested $447m in Edens, in which it holds a 30% stake.

Madison Realty Capital, meanwhile, is targeting a total equity raise of $600m for its Debt Fund III, with a hard cap of $700m.

The real estate manager will co-invest up to $5m in the fund, which has a targeted 16% net IRR.

Debt Fund III will seek to originate and acquire senior-secured loans, mezzanine loans and preferred equity investments collateralised by commercial real estate.

NYSTERS was one of the last investors to go into Rockpoint’s Core Plus Fund, for which $965m was raised.

[…]

NYSTRS said its previous experience with Rockpoint was one of several reasons for going into the fund.

The Core Plus Fund, focused on office and apartment properties in the East and West Coasts of the US, is targeting a 9-10% net IRR, with a significant component from current cash flow.

The NYSTRS has $95 billion in assets.

Dallas Police Pension To Exit Luxury Real Estate After Big Losses

After experiencing big losses, the Dallas Police & Fire Pension System is exiting its position in luxury real estate investments, including a piece of Arizona land meant for a golf course that never materialized.

The fund’s luxury real estate investments have dragged down its portfolio’s overall returns since 2011.

From Bloomberg:

The Dallas police and firefighters’ retirement plan has soured on luxury real estate.

The $3.4 billion Dallas Police & Fire Pension System is selling houses in Hawaii, a Napa Valley vineyard and a patch of Arizona desert after losing about $200 million on the deals, according to city council members who serve as board members for the fund. The system plans to put the cash into traditional assets such as stocks and bonds.

The sales mark a shift from an approach that by 2011 left more than 60 percent of the system’s money in real estate, private equity and other alternative investments, only to see returns suffer. The fund’s 4.4 percent gain in 2013 compared with the 16.1 percent average advance for U.S. public pensions as stocks rallied, according to research firm Wilshire.

“It’s a terrible indictment of our strategy,” said Councilman Philip Kingston, who sits on the pension’s board. “Losses have been caused by our exposure to luxury real estate.”

More details on two of the investments: a piece of land in Arizona that was to be developed into a golf course, and a downtown Dallas apartment tower. From Bloomberg:

Land it bought for a golf-course development in Pima County, Arizona, couldn’t be developed because the fund hadn’t secured water rights, Kleinman said. The land later sold for $7.5 million, a fraction of the $34 million invested, the Dallas Morning News reported in September.

Tettamant, who was at the fund for more than 20 years, resigned in June after board members questioned how the real estate investments affected returns. He didn’t respond to a phone call to his home seeking comment on his role.

The city, which has four council members on the fund’s 12-member board, has been exercising more control and has asked the fund to list properties based on market value, Kleinman said. That led to audits that reduced values, depressing returns for 2013.

The fund may face other liabilities from an investment in a $200 million apartment tower in downtown Dallas. The nearby Nasher Sculpture Center says light reflected from the building is damaging art work and plants in its garden. The dispute is unresolved and the pension may be stuck with the expense of reducing the glare.

“We were throwing good money after bad,” Kleinman said. “The board is going to take a more critical look at its investments going forward. We have no business investing directly in real estate.”

Dallas Police & Fire Pension System manages $3.4 billion in assets. Its investments returned 4.4 percent in 2013

New Mexico Pension Commits Additional $50 Million To Real Estate

The New Mexico Educational Retirement Board will make a $25 million commitment to a vehicle that invests in distressed Western European properties, and will commit an additional $25 million to another fund that invests in healthcare properties in the U.S.

From IPE Real Estate:

The New Mexico Educational Retirement Board is to make an additional $25m (€19.6m) commitment to Kildare European Partners I.

The pension fund also made a $125m investment in April of this year.

Mark Canavan, head of real assets at the pension fund, said New Mexico had concluded the manager of the fund was “best in class”.

European Partners I could have a total equity raise of as much as $2bn for opportunistic real estate, with a 13% potential IRR.

The vehicle will invest in individual and entity-level assets with operating companies in Western Europe.

New Mexico is also making a $25m commitment to Hammes Partners II, having approved an initial $25m commitment late last year.

The fund is investing in a variety of US healthcare-related properties, with a projected $300m total equity raise.

Hammes II is the first fund product offered by Hammes – all previous investments were invested on behalf of high net worth individuals, family office and publicly traded healthcare REITs on a deal-by-deal arrangement.

Capital for the two funds comes from New Mexico’s increased targeted allocation to real estate – up from 5% to 7% earlier this year.

The Retirement Board isn’t the only pension fund putting more money in the Kildare fund. In September, CalSTRS committed $100 million to European Partners I; the fund now has committed a total of $200 million to the vehicle.

Kolivakis On Canada Pension’s Big Brazil Bet

On Tuesday the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), the entity that manages investments for the Canada Pension Plan, unveiled plans to invest $396 million in commercial real estate in Brazil.

The CPPIB now has nearly $2 billion committed to real estate investments in Brazil.

Leo Kolivakis, who runs the Pension Pulse blog, weighed in on CPPIB’s Brazil bet in a post this week:

Let me share my thoughts on this Brazilian real estate deal. From a timing perspective, this deal couldn’t come at a worse time. Why? Because the Brazilian economy remains in recession and things can get a lot worse for Latin American countries which experienced a boom/ bust from the Fed’s policies and China’s over-investment cycle. This is why some are calling it Latin America’s ‘made in the USA’ 2014 recession, and if you think it’s over, think again. John Maudin’s latest, A Scary Story for Emerging Markets, discusses how the end of QE and the surge in the mighty greenback can lead to a sea change in the global economy and another emerging markets crisis.
Mac Margolis, a Bloomberg View contributor in Rio de Janeiro, also wrote an excellent comment this week on why the oil bust has Brazil in deep water, going over the problems at Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR).

The re-election of President Dilma Rousseff didn’t exactly send a vote of confidence to markets as she now faces the challenge of delivering on campaign promises to expand social benefits for the poor while balancing a strained federal budget. President Rousseff says the Brazilian economy will recover and the country will avoid a credit downgrade but that remains to be seen.
Having said all this, CPPIB is looking at Brazil as a very long-term play, so they don’t care if things get worse in the short-run. In fact, the Fund will likely look to expand and buy more private assets in Brazil if things do get worse. And they aren’t the only Canadian pension fund with large investments in Brazil. The Caisse also bought the Brazilian boom and so have others, including Ontario Teachers which bet big on Eike Batista and got out before getting burned.

Are there risks to these private investments in Brazil? You bet. There is illiquidity risk, currency risk, political and regulatory risk but I trust CPPIB’s managers weighed all these risks and still decided to go ahead with big investment because they think over the long-run, they will make significant gains in these investments.

My biggest fear is how will emerging markets act as QE ends (for now) and I openly wonder if big investments in Brazil or other countries bound to oil and commodities are worth the risk now. Also, the correlation risk to Canadian markets is higher than we think. My only question to CPPIB’s top brass is why not just wait a little longer and pick these Brazilian assets up even cheaper?

But I already know what Mark Wiseman will tell me. CPPIB takes the long, long view and they are not looking at such deals for a quick buck. As far as “egos at CPPIB” that Mr. Doak mentions in the BNN interview, I can’t speak for everyone there, but I can tell you Mark Wiseman doesn’t have a huge ego. If you meet him, you’ll come away thinking he’s a very smart, humble and hard working guy who’s very careful about the deals he enters.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board manages $226 billion in assets.

Read the entire Pension Pulse post here.

Japan Pension Unveils Portfolio Shifts, Takes On More Risk

Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund has officially announced major changes to its portfolio. The pension fund had been reviewing its investments since the summer, but it wasn’t known when the process would end.

The shifts include doubling its equity allocations, cutting bonds by nearly 50 percent and a new target allocation for alternatives of 5 percent.

From Business Week:

Japan’s public retirement-savings manager will put half its holdings in local and foreign stocks and start investing in alternative assets as the world’s biggest pension fund seeks higher returns.

The 127.3 trillion yen ($1.1 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund set allocation targets of 25 percent each for Japanese and overseas equities, up from 12 percent each, it said at a briefing today in Tokyo. GPIF will reduce domestic bonds to 35 percent of assets from 60 percent. The new figures don’t include an allocation to short-term assets, while the previous targets did. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg this month had anticipated levels of 24 percent for local stocks, 15 percent for global shares and 40 percent for Japanese bonds, taking short-term holdings into account.

The new allocations were released hours after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly added to monetary easing, sending the Nikkei 225 Stock Average to a seven-year high. Reports that the fund’s announcement was coming today also buoyed shares. Investors have been awaiting the revised strategy since a government panel said last year GPIF was too reliant on domestic bonds, with the central bank stoking inflation and pension payouts mounting as the nation’s population ages.

GPIF increased its target for foreign bonds to 15 percent, up from 11 percent. The fund will put as much as 5 percent of holdings in alternative investments such as private equity, infrastructure and real estate, with those accounted for within the other asset classes rather than as a separate allocation.

The Government Pension Investment Fund is the largest public pension fund in the world. It manages $1.1 trillion in assets.

Photo by Ville Miettinen

Ohio PERS Invests $75 Million In Shopping Centers

The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) is giving $75 million to FCA Partners to invest in retail real estate – specifically, large shopping centers and grocery stores.

From IPE Real Estate:

The new allocation will be invested over the remainder of this year and the beginning of next year.

Capital will be invested in a mixture of grocery-anchored shopping centres and power shopping centres across the US, with a value-add approach.

As a separate-account structure, FCA will have investment discretion within agreed investment guidelines, giving the manager the authority to make final investment decisions without approval from Ohio PERS.

The manager will invest in both debt and equity investments.

Although the relationship between Ohio PERS and FCA Partners is a new one, the manager is a spin-off of Faison & Associates, in which the fund first invested in 1995.

Since inception, the pension fund has invested $932m with the manager.

The death of Henry Faison in 2012 saw the creation of FCA Partners; Ohio PERS has therefore transferred the separate account previously managed by Faison to FCA.

The pension fund is looking to place more capital with separate account managers in value-add retail, industrial and hotel property as part of its $1.26bn allocations to separate-account managers this year.

Ohio PERS manages $88.6 billion in assets, of which 10.3 percent is allocated towards real estate.

CalPERS Cautious on Real Estate Despite Owning Hot Property

For CalPERS, the empty lot that currently sits at Third and Capitol in downtown Sacramento represents both a past failure and future opportunity.

CalPERS owns the lot, which has sat vacant since the fund lost $60 million on a failed condo development there in 2007.

That’s why CalPERS is being cautious with plans to develop the lot, even if it’s a hot property with the new Sacramento Kings arena being built just a few blocks away.

From the Sacramento Bee:

CalPERS has become more conservative about developing property from the ground up and now says it will take its time before proceeding at the downtown site.

“We plan to be very smart before jumping back into construction,” said Ted Eliopoulos, the newly installed chief investment officer at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

That’s not to say the nation’s largest public pension fund is ignoring the site’s potential. With the Kings’ arena set for an October 2016 opening and the downtown market in a state of revival, Eliopoulos said CalPERS and its development partner, CIM Group of Los Angeles, are committed to eventually doing something big at Third and Capitol.

“It deserves a project of scale, an iconic project,” said Eliopoulos, the man who pulled the plug on the original condo and hotel towers in 2007 after construction had begun.

In the most extensive comments the pension fund has made about the site in years, Eliopoulos said CalPERS and CIM are trying to determine “what mix of office, apartment, retail would be most appropriate for the site, from an economic standpoint, from a community standpoint.”

More details on the failed condo development that was originally supposed to occupy the space:

For the past seven years…Third and Capitol has been a humbling reminder, for both CalPERS and the city, of the collapse of the real estate market.

With CalPERS as his major financial backer, Sacramento developer John Saca was going to build twin 53-story condo and hotel towers on the site that once housed the old Sacramento Union newspaper. Along with the Aura condo project proposed a few blocks east, the Saca Towers were going to launch a downtown housing boom.

Neither project materialized, but the Saca project was the more spectacular failure. The fenced-off site, now a ghost town of weeds, trees and concrete pilings, has become known in some quarters as “the hole in the ground.”

Billed as the tallest residential project on the West Coast, the towers got off to a surprisingly strong start.

[…]

Eventually, though, the project ran into big problems – namely, $70 million worth of cost overruns caused by troubles with the concrete pilings. After spending $25 million, CalPERS cut off funding in January 2007. The decision was made by Eliopoulos, a private developer who had just joined CalPERS as senior investment officer for real estate.

“That was my first week on the job,” Eliopoulos said. “That was the first decision that I made, to stop the project.”

Months of public wrangling ensued between the two partners, with Saca complaining that he’d been undermined by CalPERS. Eventually, the pension fund got control of the site, but at a cost. On top of the original $25 million, it spent an additional $35 million to satisfy contractors’ liens, repay a mortgage and perform some additional pre-construction work. (The customers’ deposits, parked in an escrow account, were also returned.) CIM Group, which has built several downtown Sacramento buildings and partnered with CalPERS on the Plaza Lofts project on J Street years ago, was brought in to manage the forlorn site and advise the pension fund on possible uses.

CalPERS lost $10 billion on real estate investments between 2008 and 2010. In the years since, its real estate portfolio has seen double-digit returns almost every year.

The fund plans to increase its real estate holdings by 27 percent by 2016.

Photo by Photo by Stephen Curtin

Maryland Pension Fires REIT Manager, Will Transfer $311 Million Portfolio To New Firm

The Maryland State Retirement and Pension System is shaking up its domestic REIT portfolio as the fund has fired LaSalle Investment Management and will shift its $311 million domestic REIT portfolio to State Street Global Advisors.

From IPE Real Estate:

Maryland State declined to comment or provide a reason for the decision, while LaSalle failed to respond.

The $311m (€244m) domestic REIT portfolio will be transferred to State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), with a global investment strategy for REITs, benchmarked against the FTSE/EPRA NAREIT Developed Index.

Maryland State said it had a long relationship with SSgA across passive equities, core fixed income and EMD.

The pension fund also uses Morgan Stanley as a global REIT manager for a $387.6m foreign portfolio, also benchmarked against the FTSE/EPRA NAREIT Developed Index.

Maryland State has approved a $50m commitment to CBRE Strategic Partners US Value Fund VII.

CBRE Global Investors is raising $1.5bn for the US-focused fund, in which it will co-invest a maximum $30m.

The fund, which will invest in the office, industrial, hotel, retail and apartment sectors, has a targeted 15% gross IRR and a 12.8% net.

The pension fund has made nearly $280m in commitments to CBRE Investors since 2007.

The Maryland State Retirement and Pension System manages nearly $45 billion in assets and allocated 6.9 percent to real estate.

Chart: Alternatives Set To Double By 2020

A report recently released by PricewaterhouseCoopers finds that alternative assets held by the world’s largest asset managers will double by 2020 — a trend that will be driven largely by pension funds.

The makeup of alternative assets currently:

Chart credit: Chief Investment Officer and PwC

Surveys: Institutional Investors Disillusioned With Hedge Funds, But Warming To Real Estate And Infrastructure

Two separate surveys released in recent days suggest institutional investors might be growing weary of hedge funds and the associated fees and lack of transparency.

But the survey results also show that the same investors are becoming more enthused with infrastructure and real estate investments.

The dissatisfaction with hedge funds — and their fee structures — is much more pronounced in the U.S. than anywhere else. From the Boston Globe:

Hedge funds and private equity funds took a hit among US institutions and pension managers in a survey by Fidelity Investments released Monday.

The survey found that only 19 percent of American managers of pensions and other large funds believe the benefits of hedge funds and private equity funds are worth the fees they charge. That contrasted with Europe and Asia, where the vast majority — 72 percent and 91 percent, respectively — said the fees were fair.

The US responses appear to reflect growing dissatisfaction with the fees charged by hedge funds, in particular. Both hedge funds and private equity funds typically charge 2 percent upfront and keep 20 percent of the profits they generate for clients.

Derek Young, vice chairman of Pyramis Global Advisors , the institutional arm of Fidelity that conducted the survey, chalked up the US skepticism to a longer period of having worked with alternative investments.

“There’s an experience level in the US that’s significantly beyond the other regions of the world,’’ Young said.

A separate survey came to a similar conclusion. But it also indicated that, for institutional investors looking to invest in hedge funds, priorities are changing: returns are taking a back seat to lower fees, more transparency and the promise of diversification. From Chief Investment Officer:

Institutional investors are growing unsatisfied with hedge fund performance and are increasingly skeptical of the quality of future returns, according to a survey by UBS Fund Services and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

The survey of investors overseeing a collective $1.9 trillion found that only 39% were satisfied with the performance of their hedge fund managers, and only a quarter of respondents said they expected a “satisfying level of performance” in the next 12-24 months.

[…]

The report claimed this showed a change in expectations of what hedge funds are chosen to achieve. Investors no longer expect double-digit returns, but instead are content to settle for lower fees, better transparency, and low correlations with other asset classes.

Mark Porter, head of UBS Fund Services, said: “With institutional money now accounting for 80% of the hedge fund industry, they will continue seeking greater transparency over how performance is achieved and how risks are managed, leading to increased due diligence requirements for alternative managers.”

Meanwhile, the USB survey also indicated investors are looking to increase their allocations to infrastructure and real estate investments. From Chief Investment Officer:

“Despite the challenges of devising investment structures that can effectively navigate the dynamic arena of alternative markets, asset managers should remain committed to infrastructure and real assets which could drive up total assets under management in these two asset classes,” the report said.

“This new generation of alternative investments is expected to address the increasing asset and liability constraints of institutional investors and satisfy their preeminent objective of a de-correlation to more traditional asset classes.”

The report noted that despite waning enthusiasm for hedge funds, allocations aren’t likely to change for the next few years.

But alternative investments on the whole, according to the report, are expected to double by 2020.

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