LACERA approves $100m commitment

Institution: Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association
Headquarters: Pasadena, United States
AUM: $57.88bn
Allocation to Alternatives: 23.3%
Bitesize: $50-100m

Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association has agreed to commit $100 million to BlackFin Financial Services Fund III, as confirmed by a representative within the organization. This is the California public pension’s first commitment to fund manager BlackFin Capital Partners, a French investment firm that focuses on the European financial services sector.

The commitment is also LACERA’s third in a row to a non-US private equity fund, the previous two being made to China-focused Joy Capital vehicles. LACERA represents a minority US investor presence within BlackFin Capital Partners, which, according to the company website, receives fundraising almost solely through European institutional investors.

The $54.03 billion public pension has a 10 percent target allocation to private equity that currently stands at 10.30 percent.

As illustrated in the charts below, LACERA has made several commitments to private equity funds with a 2018 vintage which combined constitute $740 million. Of those commitments, $330 million were made to funds focused on financial services.

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