New York State Teachers’ inks $350 mln in PE commitments

The retirement system committed £42 million ($67.8 million) across two Inflexion Private Equity funds, Inflexion Buyout Fund IV and Inflexion Partnership Capital Fund I. The latter fund will pursue minority investments in middle-market businesses.

The U.K. firm closed its buyout fund on £650 million in October. The partnership capital closed on £400 million at the same time.

New York State Teachers’ committed $200 million to Hellman & Friedman’s eighth buyout fund, which had raised roughly $10 billion as of September, Buyouts reported. Hellman & Friedman set a $10.25 billion hard cap for the fund and expected to hold a final close by the end of October, according to a San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System memo.

New York Teachers’ also closed an $80 million commitment to ABRY Partners’s latest buyout fund in August. The final commitment was $20 million less than the maximum amount Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer Thomas Lee approved for ABRY Partners VIII, according to meeting materials. ABRY Partners raised $1.9 billion for the fund, according to the firm’s website.

Earlier this year, New York State Teachers’ committed $75 million to ABRY Advanced Securities Fund III, a senior debt fund that was scheduled to hold a final close on $1.5 billion in April.

The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, which as of last year had more than $90 billion in assets, has a 7 percent target allocation to private equity. The retirement system valued its private equity portfolio at $8.2 billion as of September 30, according to meeting materials.

As of June 30, the portfolio had generated a 12 percent net internal rate of return and 1.5x multiple since inception, according to meeting materials.