Ohio teachers’ pension eyes sale of $1 bln-plus worth of PE stakes

State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio is selling a portfolio of private equity stakes valued at more than $1 billion, three sources told Buyouts.

It’s not clear what’s in the portfolio. One source described it as mixed assets and tail-end funds (which refers to funds that are mostly cashed out with only a few assets left to sell).

Ohio STRS hired Evercore to work as secondaries adviser on the sale, sources said.

Ohio STRS’s private equity portfolio was valued at about $6.2 billion as of Nov. 30, 2018, up from about $5.7 billion on June 30, 2018, according to pension documents.

The system had about $76 billion of total assets as of November, pension documents said.

Ohio STRS’s private equity relationships include Blackstone Group, Francisco Partners, Silver Lake, Summit Partners, Thoma Bravo and Vista Equity, according to pension documents.

Traditional LP stake sales represent the bulk of deal activity on the market, helping drive estimated total activity volume in 2018 to more than $70 billion, according to three full-year activity reports from secondaries intermediaries.

Other large public systems that have sold on the secondaries market include Florida State Board of Administration, Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Other large systems in Pennsylvania and California are considering selling, Buyouts has reported.

Action Item: Read more about Ohio STRS here: https://bit.ly/2Gx318P.