Marin County commits $50m to Abbott Capital’s 2016 FoF

The investment committee for the Marin County Employees’ Retirement Association (MCERA) has approved a $50 million commitment to Abbott Capital Management’s 2016 annual programme.

MCERA committed to the programme at its 10 December meeting, according to Jeff Wickman, retirement administrator for the public pension plan.

MCERA, which is based in San Rafael, California, also received a discounted fee because it was a repeat investor with Abbott and was making an early commitment. “Based on the our repeat-investor discount and the early-closer discount, our understanding is the average annual fees for MCERA’s AP 2016 commitment will be approximately 0.37 percent,” he said in an email on Monday, although Wickman did not break down the fees.

Abbott’s annual funds typically make both primary and secondaries investments in private equity funds and have ranged in size between $80 million and $150 million in recent years, according to data from PEI’s Research and Analytics division.

MCERA’s private equity programme was initiated in 2008 at the start of the economic downturn and both Abbott Capital Management and Pathway Capital Management, to which the pension also committed $50 million at its September meeting, have been managing the private equity programme since then. MCERA’s private equity exposure is now nearing its 8 percent target allocation.

“The new commitment is in line with the pacing plan,” Wickman said.

The City of Aurora General Employees’ Retirement Plan, which is based in Colorado, invested $5 million to Abbott’s 2016 annual programme, Secondaries Investor reported in October.

Abbott Capital was not available to comment.