New York pension adds private investments in Europe, Israel and Australia

The $216 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund added three more funds to its ever-growing private equity program, which now accounts for nearly 10% of the retirement system’s assets. The three funds added last month were EQT Partners’ EQT IX, Pitango Venture Capital Fund VIII and Adamantem Capital Fund II. In total, $374 million was added to the private equity portfolio. The latest buyout fund launch from Stockholm EQT Partners received a €300 million ($354 million) commitment with the funding of the capital calls will come from cash. EQT already manages assets for New York and has been steadily building up its portfolio. During the first half of 2020, fundraising of EQT IX (target fund size of €14.75 billion and hard cap of €15 billion) progressed according to plan albeit with an increasing share of work handled remotely and digitally, officials reported at the $47 billion private investment firm. Officials also placed a $10 million commitment thorough the ongoing Hamilton Lane/NYSCRF Israel Fund with existing manager Pitango, which will make early stage venture investments in the technology industry from its headquarters in Herzliya, Israel. Another existing manager at the pension fund Adamantem received a AUD 14 million (US$10 million) commitment last month through the system’s co-investment fund. The allocation is to Adamantem Capital Fund II. The private equity firm focuses on mid-market investments with an opportunistic view on companies located in established economies with the upside potential of Asia. N.Y. State Common is the nation’s third largest pension fund and in the second quarter reported investment gains of 10.35%. “One of the strongest rebounds in modern history lifted the Fund’s value well above what it was at the close of the state fiscal year and restored most of the losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. As of the end of June, the pension had 53% of its assets invested in publicly traded equities. The rest of the fund assets are invested in cash, bonds and mortgages (23.2%); private equity (9.6%); real estate and real assets (8.7%) and credit, absolute return strategies and opportunistic alternatives (5.5%). DiNapoli recently appointed Navyug Patel as deputy chief investment officer of the retirement fund. He had served as the fund’s interim deputy CIO since July 2018. “Nav is a valued partner to me in our investment process,” said Anastasia Titarchuk, chief investment officer of the New York State Common Retirement Fund. “His experience and abilities have been key to our team as we manage the Fund’s diversified portfolio through volatile times.” Patel joined the Office of the State Comptroller in 2015 as a senior investment officer on the opportunistic and absolute return strategies (ARS) team, becoming director of ARS in 2017. A year later he was appointed interim deputy CIO. He worked as a technologist and consultant for IBM Global Services in San Francisco prior to working in the financial sector, where he was an equity derivatives trader at JP Morgan, Barclays and Jefferies in New York City and London.

New York pension adds private investments in Europe, Israel and Australia

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