SFERS puts $115m in equity and credit

Name: San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System
HQ: San Francisco, US
AUM: $32.63 billion
Allocation to private equity: 30%

San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System recently closed two private markets fund commitments on a combined $115 million, according to materials from its 16 February retirement board meeting.

From SFER’s Private Credit portfolio, $65 million has been invested into Blue Torch Credit Opportunities Fund III, alongside a further $50 million to Institutional Venture Partners XVIII, which is classified as a venture capital investment within SFERS’ Private Equity portfolio.

Founded in 2017, Blue Torch Capital is a New York-based investment firm that focuses on private equity, credit and secondaries investments in the industrials and financial services sectors across the US and Canada. In April 2022, the firm held an initial close for Blue Torch Credit Opportunities Fund III with a target size of $2 billion and a hard-cap of $2.5 billion. The fund had raised $1.4 billion as of December 2022 and is expected to hold its final close in Q2 2023.

Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) is a later stage venture capital firm investing in healthcare and information technology companies in the North American region. The firm launched Institutional Venture Partners XVIII in September 2022, off the back of a successful $1.8 billion closing for its predecessor fund in May 2021.

San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System currently allocates 30 percent of its total investment portfolio to private equity, with a further 7.4 percent allocated to the private credit asset class. Respectively, this comprises of $9.8 billion to private equity, and a further $2.4 billion to private credit. The target allocations to both asset classes sit at 23 percent to private equity and 10 percent to private credit as of 31 January, 2023.

As illustrated below, SFERS’ recent private equity commitments have tended to focus on either buyout or credit vehicles that invest across North America in the TMT and financial services sectors.

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