IMRF increases exposure to real estate to 9% 


The $41.3 billion Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund has increased its exposure to the real estate asset class from 8 percent to 9 percent, according to documents released by Nisa Neely, senior communications specialist for the pension fund. The market value of IMRF’s real estate portfolio was $2.19 billion, as of Dec. 31, 2017.

In additional news, IMRF increased its goals for assets managed by minority and women (“minority” owned) firms in the real estate and private equity asset classes to 8 percent and 15 percent, respectively. As of Jan. 31, 2018, the real estate portfolio had $3.6 billion in approved commitments and the private equity portfolio had $2.5 billion in approved commitments.

Currently, 12 minority-owned firms manage $517 million (14 percent) of the real estate portfolio. IMRF hires real estate managers directly and through its manager of managers program. Artemis Real Estate Partners implements a real estate manager of managers program on behalf of IMRF. The Artemis MWBE Spruce Program is an evergreen separate account with an annual capital commitment from IMRF. As of Jan. 31, 2018, IMRF had committed $225 million to Spruce.

IMRF is committed to diversity in the hiring of minority-owned investment managers as evident by its aspirational goal to have a least 20 percent of the total pension fund’s assets managed by minority and women owned firms. In 2017, IMRF allocated $905 million to minority- and women-owned firms across the fixed income, real estate and private equity asset classes.