NYS Teachers goes large with more than $1.2 bln of PE pledges in Q1

New York State Teachers Retirement System committed more than $1.2 billion in private equity commitments during the first quarter, according to minutes from its April meeting.

The system ended the quarter with 233 partnerships and $22 billion in active commitments, as of March 31, 2019.

First-quarter commitments to relationships included:

• $150 million to Nautic Partners’ ninth fund, focused on healthcare, industrial and outsourced services companies. Nautic Partners IX closed in March at its hard cap of $1.5 billion.
• $100 million to Kinderhook Capital Fund VI, which targets North American middle-market companies in the automotive, healthcare, light manufacturing and environmental industries;
• $100 million to Lovell Minnick Equity Partners V, targeting $1 billion. Lovell Minnick Partners’ latest flagship focused on financial and business services in North America;
• $400 million to Maple Fund, which is “dedicated to deploying capital to active and passive co-investment opportunities from a select subset of NYSTRS’ private equity managers,” per meeting minutes;
• €100 million ($111.6 million) to Gilde Buy-Out Partners’ sixth fund. Gilde Buy-Out targets lower-middle-market leveraged-buyout firms in Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and Switzerland;
• $100 million to a fund from DCP Capital Partners, focused on consumer, environmental, healthcare, industrials, TMT and financial services companies in China;
• £73.1 million ($94.5 million) to two funds from Inflexion Private Equity: £23.1 million to Enterprise Fund V, a middle market buyout fund based in the U.K.; and £50 million to Supplemental Fund V, which offers co-investment equity to buyouts;
• $200 million to Pacific Equity Partners’ sixth fund, focused on investments made by businesses in Australia or New Zealand.

New York in Q1 re-upped $358.2 million in commitments to its existing partners.

The state also made $364 million in commitments to PE funds in April, per a meeting document.

The state pledged £75 million to Inflexion Strategic Capital Fund, and £150 million to the seventh Cinven Fund, which targets TMT, healthcare, industrials, business services, financial services and consumer industries in the U.S. and Europe.

The system also committed $100 million to Amulet Capital Partners’ second fund, targeting the healthcare sector in North America.

NYSTRS also renewed its contract with its PE and private debt consultant, TorreyCove Capital Partners.

PE makes up 7.1 percent of the system’s assets, as of June 30, 2018. The portfolio returned a net internal rate of return of 12.3 percent and a net multiple of 1.6x capital, as of March 31, 2019.