By Muskan Arora
Shrinking
the exposure to private equity, the $77.4bn Pennsylvania Public School Employees’
Retirement System announced the sale of 13 private equity deals on the secondary
markets.
The aggregate
net asset value of the sale totaled to $822m which closed on September 30, as
announced in the October 25 news
release.
“PSERS periodically assesses market conditions,” said Ben
Cotton, the Chief Investment Officer of the pension plan.
“This specific transaction was well priced from our
perspective and facilitates adjustments to exposures within our private markets
holdings,” he added.
Cotton has previously indicated his intentions of reducing
the pension fund’s overall target to private investments.
In previous interactions with the press, the CIO has
expressed staying under the target as it allows for more flexibility within the
public sleeve than private sleeve.
As recently noted, the system’s
fiscal year returns at 8.14% were led by public equity at 19.5%, for the
year ended June 30.
The system allocates 16.1% to its private equity sleeve
against a target of 12%, as of June 30.
Within its infrastructure sleeve, the board approved a new
investment of up to $250m to Brookfield Infrastructure Solutions.
Further, in
the recent meeting, the system approved a hike within its public equities sleeve
to 32% from 30% and lowered the targets to private real estate to 6% from 7%
and public commodities to 4% from 5%.
All changes
are expected to be completed by December 1 and will remain effective for up to
three years.
