Zoe Hughes
The Teacher Retirement System of Texas has hired former Summit Properties president Steve LeBlanc to lead its real asset and private equity portfolios. Lee Partridge, the pension's strategic research managing director has been promoted to deputy chief investment officer.
Gary Stevens has filed a lawsuit against the Connecticut secondaries firm claiming Landmark failed to honour a promise to give him an ‘ownership interest’ in the firm.
The £15bn UK charity is particularly interested in direct secondary deals as it manages and rebalances its alternatives portfolio, Peter Pereira Gray, Wellcome deputy chief investment officer, said at the PERE Forum in New York yesterday.
The Simsbury, Connecticut-based firm is targeting $750m for its latest real estate fund – the largest dedicated secondaries real estate vehicle ever. It comes amid a massive rise in LP demand for liquidity.
The US government has been urged to create a ‘bad bank’ entity, such as the Resolution Trust Corporation of the 1990s, to force banks to offload toxic real estate-related assets and free up markets.
The New York-based private equity firm said one-third of the private companies in its private equity portfolio faced write-downs of some kind, as president Tony James revealed a $68m Q3 private equity loss.
When Barack Obama is sworn into the White House in 2009, private equity firms can expect some changes, among them likely increases to capital gains and carried interest taxation. However, his election also could prompt a greater willingness by overseas investors to invest in the US.
The Vietnam real estate investment firm says it plans to launch a $400m property fund at the end of January next year, according to reports, arguing the wind has been taken ‘out of the sails’ of property developers in the country.
Real estate was the only asset class to make a positive return for the $29.5bn pension fund, however allocations to private equity real estate have now topped 10.5% against a target of 8%.
The $1.7bn pension started investing in real estate just three years ago, however it is now considering increasing its target allocation by 3% and investing in international real estate for the first time. The plan said it was 'shutting off two-thirds' of the world by focusing on the US.