New York State Teachers’ commits $460 mln

The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System committed $460 million to private equity and venture capital in the first quarter, according to a commitment summary from the system.

Along with the closed commitments, NYS Teachers’ is considering making a $75 million commitment to ABRY Advanced Securities Fund III, which is in the market targeting at least $1 billion.

The system’s first quarter commitments were: $25 million to CapStreet IV, which has raised $325 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as of April 21; $100 million to CVC Capital Partners Asia Pacific IV, targeting $3.3 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal; and $125 million to Energy Capital Partners III, which closed on more than $5 billion, beating its $3.5 billion target.

NYS Teachers’ also committed a total of $50 million to Lightspeed Venture Partners, split between the venture firm’s Fund X and Select Fund I. Lightspeed closed on $950 million for the two vehicles in March, according to an SEC filing.

As of March 31, New York State Teachers’ has $16.5 billion of private equity commitments, with a portfolio market value of $7.8 billion, according to documents from the retirement system. The system has 177 active partnerships across 80 private equity and venture firms, the documents said.

Interestingly, the pension fund had about $1.7 billion of distributions last year, with $897 million of capital called, for net cash flow of $790 million. So far this year, the system has taken in distributions of $475 million, compared to $271 million of contributions, for net cash flow of $204 million, according to pension documents.

Since inception, the private equity portfolio has produced an 11.63 percent net internal rate of return through Dec. 31, the documents said.

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