Illinois Teachers’ backs ILPA report template

The Institutional Limited Partners Association inked one of its largest endorsements this week, gaining the support of Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois for its fee-and-expense-reporting template.

ILPA launched the template earlier this year to standardize how private equity firms disclose fees, expenses and carried interest to their limited partners.

In recent years, officials at several large institutions, including California Public Employees’ Retirement System and New York City’s retirement system, have complained about firms’ varying methods and level of disclosure.

In Illinois, State Sen. Daniel Biss introduced a bill to prescribe the amount and type of disclosure the state’s pension systems should require of their general partners. The bill cites the detail required by the ILPA template as an adequate level of disclosure of fees and expenses.

Illinois Teachers’ is the first of the state’s major pension systems to endorse the template. At $5.4 billion, Illinois Teachers’ PE portfolio ranks among the world’s largest. ILPA had a 12.1 percent allocation to the asset class as of June 30.

“This new reporting template will help us at TRS, as well as our members and the general public to better understand the risks and the rewards of this asset class,” Executive Director Dick Ingram said in a statement.

“The ILPA template is great first step in getting the private equity industry on a level playing field in the way fees and the cost of these investments is reported and tracked.”

The retirement system’s PE consultant, TorreyCove Capital Partners, was among the many firms and institutions that helped ILPA craft the template.

TorreyCove, along with pensions like CalPERS, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Oregon State Treasury and PE firms Carlyle Group, Silver Lakeand TPG endorsed the ILPA template earlier this year.

Action Item: To read more about the ILPA template, visit www.ilpa.org