The $91 billion New York State Teachers’ Retirement System named John Virtanen as its new head of private equity, according to a spokeswoman for NYSTRS. Virtanen replaces Dhvani Shah, who left in late 2011 to become chief investment officer at the $28 billion Illinois Municipal Retirement System.
Among the seven nations with the world’s largest pools of pension assets, alternatives such as private equity accounted for 19 percent of allocations in 2012, according to recent study of global pensions from Towers Watson, the financial consultancy. In the United States, alternative assets accounted for an even higher portion of assets—20 percent. That represents a huge increase in alternatives overall, which accounted for just 5 percent of all pension assets—globally and in the U.S.—as recently as 1995, according to the firm.
Commonfund Capital, the for-profit alternative investment unit of Commonfund, a non-profit Wilton, Conn.-based investment manager that serves foundations, pensions and other institutional investors, has hired Tim Yates and David Jansen to senior positions, according to Keith Luke, a managing director at the firm.
The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System, which oversees $16 billion in pension assets, named Art Wang as its new managing director of private markets to oversee investments in private equity, real estate and real assets.
The giant Texas Teachers’ Retirement System committed more than $1.1 billion to private equity across seven investments in the fourth quarter, with some pledges going to long-time partners and some to new relationships.
Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Levine Leichtman Capital Partners is back in the market with its newest flagship fund, Levine Leichtman Capital Partners V LP, which is reportedly targeting $1.5 billion. The mid-market firm is known for making investments in such firms as the Jon Douglas Real Estate Group and Quizno’s, the sandwich franchisor.
1. Your firm just closed on its latest fund, Fund IV, having raised $266 million. What do you do the first day after you close a fund? And are firms like yours always fundraising at some level? There’s not much time for celebration. We redouble our efforts to focus on deal sourcing, and really try […]
With the appointment this month of Michael Bailey as chief of private equity at the $51 billion Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board, most of the top-level vacancies for CIOs and private equity officers at the nation’s biggest pension funds have been filled. How long they’ll stay filled is the big question.
Abbott Capital Management, a New York based fund-of-funds manager, is raising its newest, Abbott Capital Private Equity Investors 2013 LP, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that focuses on oil and gas buyouts, closed its sixth fund, Kayne Anderson Energy Fund VI LP, raising $1.6 billion overall and matching the fund’s initial target. The new fund is nearly double the size of its previous effort, the 2009-vintage Fund V, which raised $820 million. Fund VI was “considerably oversubscribed,” according to the firm.