Starwood fund gets $100m in commitments

Star­wood Capital’s lat­est oppor­tunis­tic fund, Star­wood Global Oppor­tu­nity Fund VIII, has received $100 mil­lion (€63 mil­lion) in com­mit­ments from two US pen­sion funds.

The $15.8 bil­lion Teach­ers’ Retire­ment Sys­tem of Louisiana (TRSL) approved a $75 mil­lion com­mit­ment to Fund VIII at its July invest­ment com­mit­tee meet­ing last week, deputy chief invest­ment offi­cer Phil Grif­fith told PERE. A spokesman for the New Mex­ico Pub­lic Employ­ees Retire­ment Asso­ci­a­tion con­firmed the pen­sion had also approved a $25 mil­lion com­mit­ment to the Star­wood vehicle.

Last year, the Star­wood fund also received a $50 mil­lion com­mit­ment from Penn­syl­va­nia State Employ­ees’ Retire­ment Sys­tem in a follow-on invest­ment. Star­wood closed its pre­vi­ous global oppor­tu­nity fund, Fund VII, on $1.5 bil­lion in 2005.

The invest­ment by New Mex­ico was one of a trio of pri­vate equity and real estate funds to get com­mit­ments from the $13 bil­lion pub­lic pen­sion plan. The Santa Fe-based pen­sion also com­mit­ted $35 mil­lion to Quan­tum Energy Part­ners V and $30 mil­lion to Selene Part­ners Res­i­den­tial Mort­gage Oppor­tu­nity Fund. Quan­tum V is a pri­vate equity fund that invests in energy explo­ration and pro­duc­tion, while Selene Part­ners is a dis­tressed whole loan mort­gage pri­vate equity fund.