CalPERS Invests in 5 New Funds

The investment committee of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) authorized $306 million of new commitments to five private equity funds at its meeting last week in Sacramento, Calif.

The pensioner added two buyout funds, a secondaries fund and two international private equity funds.

CalPERS invested $200 million in Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners V, a $3.5 billion fund that Hellman & Friedman, a San Francisco-based buyout shop, closed in July. CalPERS plans to invest $10 million in New York-based Leeds Weld Equity Advisors’ fourth fund. Leeds Weld Equity Partners IV had an initial close of $435 million in July.

CalPERS also committed $10 million in Connecticut-based Landmark Equity Partners’ secondaries fund. That fund held a first close in June with $515 million, and the firm expects to raise $626 million before closing the fund.

CalPERS’s investment committee allocated another $55 million to Polish Enterprise Fund V, a fund managed by Enterprise Investors that will invest in Poland and throughout Central Europe. Founded in 1990, Enterprise Investors was the first institutional private equity investor in Poland. Polish Enterprise Fund V closed in May with $367 million.

CalPERS also committed $31 million to Canada’s Richardson Financial Group. Richardson is a subsidiary of James Richardson & Sons, and the group is out raising its first private equity fund. The $250 million fund provides expansion capital to family-owned businesses in Canada.

About 5%, or $8.5 billion, of CalPERS $163.5 billion investment portfolio sits in private equity funds.