The New Mexico State Investment Council is recommending a $300M commitment to Silver Rock Capital Partners’ Core Lending Strategy and $150M to ACORE Credit Partners III, according to materials from a recent board meeting.
If approved, the allocations would expand the state’s exposure to private credit and commercial real estate debt, positioning the Council to capitalize on senior secured lending opportunities amid a volatile market.
The Silver Rock recommendation — $250M in fee-paying shares and $50M in a no-fee/no-carry sidecar —would be invested through a fund-of-one structure, enabling the council to reinvest income, co-invest pari passu with Silver Rock’s term funds, and reduce administrative costs on future re-ups, according to the meeting materials.
Tom Lofton, director of debt strategies at NMSIC, alongside Meketa Investment Group’s managing principal Mary Bates, presented the recommendations to the investment committee, addressing questions on leverage, lending strategy, and due diligence. The committee voted unanimously to forward the recommendations to the full council.
Silver Rock, founded in 2010 to manage private credit for an ultra-high-net-worth family office, oversees roughly $10B in assets. Its Core Lending Strategy targets first-lien senior secured loans to large borrowers with $100–150M+ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, seeking 10–12%+ net IRR and 1.50x net MOIC. The portfolio is expected to hold 50–75 positions, with 75–85% in North America and 15–30% in Europe and Australia.
ACORE Credit Partners III is managed by ACORE Capital, which has approximately $18B in assets under management and whose senior team has originated more than $75B of commercial real estate loans since 1994. The ACP III strategy focuses on floating-rate whole loans secured by commercial real estate with value-add business plans, typically splitting loans into senior and subordinated tranches.
Investment sizes range from $25–100M, primarily in U.S. primary and select secondary markets, with loan-to-value ratios of 50–75%, hold periods of one to five years, and portfolio leverage capped at 3:1x, including structural real estate investment trust leverage. ACP III targets 10–12% net returns, with quarterly distributions of 8–10%, primarily from current income. The strategy will be allocated to real estate bucket within the private debt market strategies portfolio.
Both allocations align with NMSIC’s 2023 fixed-income pacing study, emphasizing reinvestment, collateral diversification, leveraging scale for improved economics, yield-focused returns, and downside protection. The combined $450M recommendation remains subject to New Mexico legal requirements, council policies, final term negotiations, and completion of documentation.
