Illinois Municipal commits to Vista, Clearlake and Valor

The system's private equity portfolio makes up $1.6 billion.

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund continues to show its support to minority-and-women-owned businesses with its latest round of investments to the private equity space.

The system pledged up to $200 million to three private equity funds at its November meeting, according to its website.

Illinois committed $75 million to Clearlake Capital Group’s Partners VI fund, targeting $5 billion on a $7 billion hard cap, Buyouts exclusively reported. The company focuses on the energy, software, tech-enabled, industrials and consumer industries.

Clearlake’s previous pool, Fund V, closed with more than $3.6 billion in 2018. Fund VI could close with more than $5 billion in December, sources told Buyouts last month.

The system committed $75 million to Valor Equity Partners’ fifth fund. Illinois Municipal previously invested up to $75 million to Valor Equity Partners IV in 2017.

IMRF also committed $50 million to Vista Equity Partners’ latest middle-market fund, Vista Foundation IV. The fund is targeting $3.25 billion and has no hard cap. Sources previously told Buyouts that Fund IV could fundraise up to $4.5 billion.

Founded by billionaire Robert Smith, Vista Equity has a small-cap Endeavor fund and a mega Fund VII, which closed on $16 billion in September.

Illinois Municipal invested over $724 million to previous funds from Calor, Vista and Clearlake.

Last year, Illinois Municipal increased its allocation goal for minority-managers from 10 percent to 15 percent.

Illinois Municipal did not respond to requests for comment.

About 24.2 percent of Illinois Municipal’s total portfolio is managed by minority-and women-owned businesses, its website showed. Year to date, the system has invested up to $610 million to MWBE, including those in its real estate asset class.