Maine Public Employees Retirement System has hired its first ever real estate consultant to help it commit the remaining 5 percent of its targeted allocation to real estate.
According to reports, the US pension fund has hired ORG Real Property, the Cleveland and Portland based institutional investor advisory firm to help it reach its 10 percent investment plan in the sector.
Maine PERS had a real estate portfolio valued at $370m (€267.2m) as of the end of May. This reflected only 5 percent of the 10 percent targeted total.
Most of this investment has been in four open-ended core commingled funds, worth $325m, with JP Morgan Asset Management, Prudential Real Estate Investors, Principal Real Estate Investors and BlackRock Realty. The pension fund has also invested in a passive index REIT strategy with Barclays Global Investors.
However, Maine PERS is expected to alter its investment strategy to include areas such as opportunity funds.
The pension fund could also increase its investment into public real estate and may appoint REIT managers to lead a foray into this sector.
In a report by IPE Real Estate, Andrew Sawyer, chief investment officer at Maine PERS, said : “We are going to be considering a variety of new investment strategies for the future.” said Sawyer.
“We think we are in a good position, given the amount of capital that we have available to invest and the lack of capital that many pension funds have around the country.”
If you do not receive this within five minutes, please try to sign in again. If the problem persists, please email: 
