Limited access to top venture funds continues to restrain the Washington State Investment Board from investing in the asset class, according to Gary Bruebaker, the board’s chief investment officer.

In one of the largest series of commitments this year, the $84 billion Washington State Investment Board pledged $750 million to private equity funds and another $500 million to infrastructure funds, one of the fastest-growing asset classes among pension investors…

Certain funds in Washington State Investment Board’s venture portfolio are reaping in the rewards according to its most recent IRR report for its private equity funds from October 1981 inception to September 30, 2011.

The Washington State Investment Board, which manages more than $80 billion in pension assets, made more than $1 billion in commitments to a trio of private equity funds, two of which just started their fundraising efforts.

It must be international month in the Washington State Investment Board cafeteria. At its November board meeting, the $79 billion pension system made more than $550 million in commitments to two global private equity managers, including $300 million for London-based Apax Partners and its Apax Europe VIII LP, and $250 million for Actis’s latest emerging markets offering, Actis Global 4 LP.

Washington State has one of the nation’s largest private equity programs, with $15.6 billion in existing private equity assets. Private equity represents about 25 percent of its main fund’s total assets.

Want to catch up on what your colleagues found most interesting on peHUB last week? Here are the top 10 blog posts written by peHUB staffers that garnered the most pageviews from our regular readers from April 18 to April 22.

No. 1: Concern Grows Over Founders Cashing Out Too Much, Too Early
No. 2: Fund Terms Grow Sweeter; Bain Expected To Offer 20% Carry
No. 3: Churchill Financial Files To Form A BDC
No. 4: Hungry VCs Like the Taste of Social Food Sites
No. 5: Charlesbank, H.I.G. Sell Vision Source After Nearly A Year
No. 6: Global Secondary Market Expected to Surpass $25B, as Asian Deals Take Off
No. 7: Decide.com Gets Another Big Name Advisor And $6M In Cash
No. 8: Social Scene: Hard-to-Get Seats at Obama’s Facebook Town Hall, Foundry Dudes Rock a New Band, 13-Year-Old’s Entreprenurial Spirit Inspires
No. 9: Silver Lake Kraftwerk Confirms Atluru And Fichtner As Partners
No. 10: Washington State Re-Ups With $300 Million to Providence Equity Partners

The Washington State Investment Board today approved a $300 million commitment to a new fund being raised by Providence Equity Partners, the Providence Equity Partners VII, L.P.

Liz Mendizabal, who heads up Public Affairs for the Washington State pension, said the state has had a longstanding relationship with Providence. “We have confidence in them and have been pleased with the results,” she said.

The Olympia, Wash.-based pension, which manages $79.4 billion in assets, last made a commitment to Providence of $250 million to its previous fund, the Providence Equity Partners VI, L.P. That fund, which ultimately raised $12 billion, closed in 2007, just before the financial crisis.

Want to catch up on what your colleagues found most interesting on peHUB this week? Here are the posts written by our staff that garnered the most pageviews from March 21 to March 25.

1. Slideshow: Top 10 Largest First Rounds Of Internet Companies This Year by Larry Aragon

2. Meet the First ‘Social Media Analyst on Wall Street’ by Connie Loizos

3. Which Buyout-backed IPO in 2010 is the Best Performer? by Eamon Beltran

4. And the Winner of Mid-market Deal of the Year Is… by David Toll

5. Andreessen Horowitz Brings Aboard a Face Familiar to the VC Industry by Connie Loizos

6. By the Numbers: Washington State Investment Board’s Buyout Performance by David Toll

7. Yuri Milner Said To Purchase $70M Silicon Valley Home by Mark Boslet

8. If It’s Pizza You’re Ordering, MidOcean’s Had Enough by Bernard Vaughan

9. Looking For High-Growth, Low-Profile Startups? Check out Momentum Index by Connie Loizos

10. Did StepStone’s PCG ties Cost It The New Mexico Advisor Deal by Jon Marino

It’s earnings season in private equity land, and by that I mean the time of year when the dozen or so pension funds that disclose their return data update their quarterly numbers. The latest round of updates generally brings the return figures current as of September 30 2010.

We don’t have the resources at sister magazine Buyouts to compile all the numbers and generate overarching statistics, as we do once a year in the fall. But I thought it still would be interesting to produce statistics for one of the oldest and largest PE portfolios in the country–that managed by Washington State Investment Board. So, below follow some statistical highlights for the state’s buyout portfolio, as of September 30. The performance numbers (including median, bottom-quartile, top-quartile return data for small, mid-sized, large and mega-firms) were generated using only numbers from the 85 vintage 2005 and older buyout funds in the portfolio to avoid the J-curve effect:

GTCR looks to be nearing a close for its tenth fund.

A source, confirming an earlier report from LBO Wire, says the Chicago PE firm is wrapping up marketing for GTCR Fund X LP with a $3.5 billion hard cap.