Tennessee picks two PE portfolio managers: UPDATED

The $42.2 billion retirement system added Carrie Green and Grant Leslie to its private equity team over the last two months. The new managers will report to Director of Private Equity Daniel Crews, who took over that role from Lamar Villere last year on an interim basis. The Tennessee pension appointed Crews to the role permanently in January, Brakebill said.

Before joining the private equity team, Green worked as a portfolio manager on the public equity side of the pension. “She was interested in this role, so we moved her over,” Brakebill said.

Leslie earlier in his career had been a senior private markets researcher at Hammond Associates. He later became a principal at Mercer Investment Consulting, after the firm acquired Hammond Associates in 2011, Brakebill said.

Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System began investing in private equity in 2009 and had committed roughly $1.7 billion to the strategy through the end of 2013, according to materials from its June 27 board of trustees meeting. The pension fund divides its allocation among buyout, credit, venture capital and natural resources investments.

From inception, the private equity portfolio had generated a 13.8 percent IRR through December 31, according to meeting materials. The retirement system has a 3 percent target allocation to the asset class.

(UPDATE: TCRS later disclosed $336 million in new private equity, venture capital and opportunistic commitments since the start of the year, a total that includes $110 million combined for buyout funds managed by Charlesbank Capital Partners and Thoma Bravo, as well as a $100 million opportunistic commitment to Strategic Partners VI.)