San Diego commits $22m via secondaries

The San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System committed $21.8 million to five funds through the secondaries market during the past 15 months, according to documents from the pension’s consultant The StepStone Group.

StepStone committed $17 million to four private equity funds through the secondaries market on behalf of San Diego, using the StepStone Atlantic Fund.

The fund bought a $10.8 million commitment in American Capital Equity III, a 2003-vintage buyout fund and a $2.7 million interest in 2001-vintage growth equity fund FTVentures.

American Capital Equity III has already distributed $900,000 to San Diego and has a total value of $8.3 million.

StepStone Atlantic also purchased fund stakes in Eureka II, a 2006-vintage buyout fund and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners V, a 2000-vintage venture capital fund. The fund commitments were $1.8 million and $1.5 million respectively.

[box style=”rounded”][fivecol_two]Investment

American Capital Equity III (2003)

Eureka II (2006)

FTVentures (2001)

Hummer Winkled Venture Partners V (2000)[/fivecol_two][fivecol_one]Committed

$10.9 million

$10.2 million

$2.7 million

$1.5 million[/fivecol_one] [fivecol_one]Funded

$6.8 million

$1.4 million

$2.4 million

$1.5 million

[/fivecol_one] [fivecol_one_last]Distributed

$0.9 million

$0.3 million

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–[/fivecol_one_last] [/box]In total, San Diego’s private equity programme with StepStone has completed 16 private equity secondaries transactions since its inception in August 2009.

The fund remains focused on private equity secondaries opportunities that come from smaller, bite-sized deals, but is also an active investor in infrastructure secondaries.

During the 15-month period the fund purchased a $4.8 million stake in Macquarie Infrastructure Fund, a 2012-vintage generalist vehicle. About $4.1 million of the commitment has been funded and the fund stake’s current value is $5.4 million.

In 2015, the StepStone Atlantic fund will continue to favour secondaries, co-investments and seasoned-primary investments as a means of increasing San Diego’s exposure by company and project stage, industry sector and fund strategy.