SFERS transfers $700m RE account to CIM

The $20bn pension system moved a real estate separate account from Deutsche Asset Management to CIM Group in June.

The San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System (SFERS) has transferred a $700 million real estate separate account to CIM Group from Deutsche Asset Management, according to documents from the pension system’s meeting last week.

The transaction was approved at the pension system’s February 10 meeting and closed on June 14, the documents said. Spokespeople for SFERS and Deutsche declined to comment on the change, and a spokesman for CIM could not be reached for comment. The pension system has invested in real estate with Deutsche since 1990, according to SFERS’ website.

The separate account now managed by CIM was created to build up a core and value-add US portfolio with investments across property types, according to IPE Real Estate, which first reported the news.

SFERS has previously invested $175 million with CIM, according to PERE research. In 2014, the fund wrote two checks totaling $100 million to CIM Fund VIII, an opportunistic fund launched in 2012. In January 2015, CIM closed the vehicle on $2.4 billion, surpassing its target of $2 billion. The pension fund also allocated $50 million to CIM Fund III, a $2.4 billion vehicle that closed in 2007. Finally, SFERS committed $25 million to a real estate investment trust, CIM Urban REIT, set up in 2005 to invest in class A commercial real estate assets in urban US markets.

CIM has $18.8 billion of assets under management, according to its website. Its most recent publicly disclosed transaction was the June purchase of Eastside Village Office, a four-story office building in Austin, Texas for an unnamed price, according to real estate data provider Real Capital Analytics (RCA). The 95,000 square foot building at 1645 East 6th Street was built earlier this year, according to RCA.

SFERS oversaw $20 billion as of June 30, including $2.4 billion in real assets, according to its website.