Illinois Teachers Earmark $800M to PE, VC
The Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois, which oversees $66 billion, moved forward with $800 million in commitments to private equity and venture capital investments in its latest board meeting.
The investments come after the pension fund hired Aksia as a diversification strategy consultant. TRS staff will receive continuing advisory services in the administration of the $3.4 billion diversification strategies portfolio, which comprises hedge funds and a variety of strategies such as factor, discretionary macro, opportunistic alpha, risk parity, and systematic macro.
Within the pension’s $11.3 billion private equity portfolio, the investment team completed seven re-ups with the following managers: New Mountain Capital: $200 million; Altaris Capital Partners: $165 million; NGP Natural Resources: $100 million; Aurora Capital Partners: $100 million; PSG: $75 million; Bregal Unternehmerkapital: $64 million; FinTech Collective: $30 million
The firms already managed collectively $804 million within the program.
A newly hired manager was Boston-based Elephant Partners, which is a venture capital firm focused on enterprise software, consumer internet and mobile markets. The commitment totaled $50 million.