Products July 11, 2011

CalPERS Casts "Wide Net" for New Investment Vehicle

July 11, 2011 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is searching for a New Investment Vehicle that will focus on domestic emerging managers for the Pension Fund’s private equity program.

 

Reported by

Through a Request for Information process, CalPERS is casting what it termed a “wide net” for a vehicle most likely structured as a customized fund-of-funds to invest in partnerships that may be under-capitalized. According to a CalPERS press release, the partnerships should offer significant potential for generating superior risk-adjusted rates of return for the CalPERS Alternative Investment Management (AIM) Program (see CalPERS Adjusts Private Equity, Cash Allocations).

“Through the manager, we’re looking for partnerships whose principal officers have individual experiences and underlying investment strategies to generate earnings in the top quartile of private equity investments,” said Réal Desrochers, Senior Investment Officer for the AIM Program. “This entails partnerships or direct investments, deal sourcing, analyzing, screening, due diligence, negotiating and closing transactions, monitoring and exiting investments.”

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The manager would invest on behalf of CalPERS in a 7- to 10-year relationship across the private equity spectrum, including venture capital, expansion capital and leverage buyout transactions.

According to a press release, the New Investment Vehicle will complement other emerging manager initiatives in the AIM Program to diversify portfolios and generate added returns by partnering with managers and funds that eventually might join the core AIM lineup of partners and funds.

Prospective candidates can use the submission form on the CalPERS website until July 25 at http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/investments/investment-proposals.xml

CalPERS is the nation’s largest public pension fund with approximately $240 billion in market assets. It administers retirement benefits for 1.6 million active and retired State, public school, and local public agency employees and their families and health benefits for 1.3 million members.

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