By Jon Peterson
Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board has approved initial allocations totaling $1 billion of equity to three real estate firms that have been active investors in the San Francisco Bay Area for a long time.
The allocations are for $400 million each to Stockbridge Core and Value Advisors and CBRE Global Investors, as well as $200 million to DivcoWest, as stated by the pension fund in a board meeting document. These commitments are initial allocations with the potential for additional capital to be placed with these managers in the future.
DivcoWest and CBRE Investors declined to comment when contacted for this story. Stockbridge did not respond to a phone call seeking comment for this article.
The investment mandate that DivcoWest has for Mass PRIM is to buy core-plus office assets around the country, as written by the pension fund in a board meeting document. The transactions could be located in a combination of primary and secondary markets.
DivcoWest could be investing some capital into non-office building properties for Mass PRIM, as well. This might include some apartment assets, as the manager has been active in buying some apartments recently outside of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Stockbridge has its corporate office located in San Francisco at 4 Embarcadero Center, and CBRE Investors is based in Los Angeles. Both of these managers for the most part will be investing in core assets that include the major property types of office, industrial, retail and apartment asset classes. There could be some non-core assets placed into the separate account with Mass PRIM’s approval.
It was written in a Mass PRIM board meeting document that Stockbridge recommends an initial focus on its account to be the acquisition of industrial and creative office opportunities.
The separate account decisions made by Mass PRIM are the end result of a Request for Proposal that was issued by the pension fund in March of this year. There was a total of 16 firms that responded to the RFP.
The search was then narrowed down to seven finalists. The managers who made the cut but were not selected were Bentall Kennedy, BlackRock, Clarion Partners and L&B Realty Advisors.
