PSERS mulls Partners Group commitment

The Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) is considering a commitment to Partners Group Secondary (2015), according to documents from its March finance committee meeting.

The commitment comes a year after PSERS announced it would allocate $200 million to existing secondaries and co-investment programmes, in an effort to reduce fees, enhance returns and boost relationships.

Investing more via co-investments and secondaries gives the pension “potential for better returns”, PSERS private markets and real estate managing director Charles Spiller said last year.

PSERS committed to Partners Group’s previous private equity secondaries fund, which raised €2.5 billion in 2008. The fund had a 1.25 percent fee and a 10 percent carry, PSERS previously disclosed.

Partners Group’s successor fund launched last year with a $2.5 billion target, according to PEI’s Research and Analytics division.

In an interview with Secondaries Investor last year Partners Group’s co-head of private equity secondaries Adam Howarth said the firm had generated $77 billion in private equity secondaries opportunities across 450 deals. This is up from 2013 when the firm recorded $70 billion worth of deals.

Howarth said at the time the firm expected more opportunities in 2015, driven by increasing portfolio management by limited partners and the compounding amount of net asset value in mature private equity funds.

PSERS has $52 billion of assets under management as of 30 June 2014. It allocates roughly 18 percent of its portfolio to private equity, PEI data disclosed.