ERS Of Texas Names Director Of PE

The Employee Retirement System of Texas, the state pension with roughly $22 billion in assets under management and nearly 200,000 active and retired members, has picked Wesley W. Gipson to serve as its new director of private equity, sister Web site peHub learned from multiple sources.

ERS of Texas declined to comment for this story.

Gipson has been with ERS of Texas for a while; he came there in 2009 after spending five years with the Aurora Group. Gipson also worked for Procter & Gamble’s corporate finance division.

Gipson will replace Patrick O’Hara, who left ERS of Texas earlier this year to join Brazos Private Equity in Dallas as managing director of investor relations. While leading the pension’s private equity arm for three years, O’Hara oversaw investments in funds covering buyout, growth equity, turnaround/restructuring, distressed debt, mezzanine, venture capital and secondary investments, according to the Brazos statement that was released in March coinciding with his hiring.