European powerhouse CVC Capital Partners takes the crown in this week’s battle of the U.S. and European mega-buyout houses, securing first place in our list of top 10 funds based on private equity performance figures from California State Teachers’ Retirement System. U.S. and European firms both account for five of the top-10 spots with The Blackstone Group coming in a close second place.

BrightSource Energy said it raised more than $80 million of additional equity financing, brings its total equity financing to more than $615 million. Alstom and VantagePoint Capital Partners lead the round with DFJ, CalSTRS, DBL Investors, Goldman Sachs, Chevron Technology Ventures and BP Ventures and others joining.

Braemar Energy Ventures has closed its third fund, Braemar Energy Ventures III, LP, with $300 million, the firm announced Wednesday.

CalSTRS, the big teachers pension fund in California, said it will vote against Kinder Morgan‘s $23 billion takeover of El Paso Corp, writes Reuters. The pension fund cites the deal’s lack of transparency and apparent conflicts of interest as its reason for not supporting the deal. Reuters – CalSTRS, the big teachers pension fund in [...]

The $145 billion retirement system is actively considering making large separate account commitments through its private equity program, according to Buyouts magazine.

Four months after peHUB reported that Shasta Ventures was in the market for a third fund, the Silicon Valley venture firm announced today that it has raised $265 million for Shasta Ventures III LP.

Thanks to positive IRRs on its first two funds, Shasta came in above target on its third vehicle despite a difficult fundraising environment. Shasta said in a July 15 regulatory filing that it planned to raise $200 million.

In an apparent bid to capture the attention of technology entrepreneurs, the early stage tech firm broke the fundraising news on TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. Shasta, based in Menlo Park, Calif., did not issue a press release.

Tod Francis — co-founder of the firm and one of …

California’s two giant pensions blazed ahead of their benchmarks to post fiscal-year returns that each topped 20 percent. The $154.3 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, said its 23.1 percent return was “remarkable,” adding that it was its best performance in 25 years. Meanwhile, the $237.5 billion California Public Employees Retirement System posted a 20.7 percent return, the best since 1997.

Together, the two pensions are now $66 billion richer than they were at this time a year ago.

Leading the strong returns were public and private equities. For CalPERS, private equity, which accounts for 13.8 percent of its portfolio, returned 25.3 percent for the year, whereas public equities, accounting for 53.4 of the portfolio, returned 30.2 percent. At CalSTRS, private equity, which makes up 14.3 percent of its portfolio, returned 22.5 percent for the year, while public equities, which accounted for 53.4 percent of the portfolio, returned 31.9 percent for the year.

The California State Teachers’ Retirement System posted a 23.1% return for the 2010-11 fiscal year. CalSTRS brought in $29 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30. Market value of CalSTRS investment portfolio was $154.3 billion, according to a statement.

The largest pension in America just named a new chief for the nation’s largest private equity program. Réal Desrochers was named senior investment officer in charge of private equity at the California Public Employees Retirement System. CalPERS’s private equity portfolio has about $33 billion in assets and $49 billion in committed capital.

Overall, CalPERS has $236 billion under management and provides benefits to some 1.6 million people. Desrochers will report to Joe Dear, CalPERS’ chief investment officer.

Desrochers is a familiar name in private equity, most notably as director for alternative investments at the $155 billion California State Teachers Retirement System, the state’s other giant pension. During his 11 years at CalSTRS, Desrochers more than quintupled the size of its private equity program to $17 billion, and garnered average annual returns of 17.5 percent. He left CalSTRS in 2009.

Catch up on what your colleagues found most interesting on peHUB this week. Posts that garnered the most pageviews from regular readers from May 23 to May 27 focused on an investigation into whether dozens of CalPERS employees improperly took gifts; the worst VC-backed Chinese IPOs; venture returns showing signs of a rebound; IPOs on [...]