Baker joins CalSTRS as PE officer; previously at sister pension CalPERS

Tom Baker, previously a private equity portfolio manager at the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has moved just down the street to join the private equity team at the California State Employees’ Retirement System.

Baker started at CalSTRS in December as one of five private equity portfolio managers, Ricardo Duran, a spokesman for the pension system, confirmed. It is not clear how long Baker worked at CalPERS.

CalSTRS lost one of its portfolio managers, Mahboob Hossain, last fall when he joined CalPERS to head up private equity co-investing. Hossain joined CalPERS as a senior portfolio manager on Sept. 1.

The market value, including unfunded commitments, of CalSTRS’s private equity portfolio as of June 30, 2014, was $29.7 billion, according to a quarterly investment report from the pension fund. As of Sept. 30, it had made $3.2 billion in commitments over the past year, and received about $6.3 billion in distributions, the report said.

CalSTRS last fall announced it would work to triple its investments in clean energy and technology to $3.7 billion over the next five years. The increase would apply to investments in private equity, infrastructure and stocks and bonds, Reuters reported.