Virginia Pledges To Turnaround Firm

The $46.5 billion Virginia Retirement System recently pledged $70 million to a turnaround firm, marking the limited partner’s fifth pledge of 2009.

The pension fund committed to Littlejohn & Co.’s Littlejohn Fund IV LP, with which the firm intends to invest in mid-sized companies generating revenues between $150 million and $800 million in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Earlier this year, Virginia committed $150 million to buyout firm Hellman & Friedman’s Hellman and Friedman Capital Partners VII; $150 million to energy vehicle First Reserve Fund XII; $75 million to TA Associates’s TA XI LP, a growth-equity vehicle; and $15 million to venture capital firm Matrix Partners’s Matrix Partners IX LP, said Jeanne Chenault, spokesperson.

As of Sept. 15, the LP’s private equity portfolio comprised about 8 percent, or roughly $3.7 billion, of the total fund, below its policy limit of 10 percent.

The Virginia Retirement System has previously backed HarbourVest Partners’s Dover Street VII LP, a global secondary vehicle; buyout fund Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking IV LP; energy fund Natural Gas Partners IX LP; and Nordic Capital Fund VII LP, which is earmarked for buyouts in Scandinavia.