San Francisco Pension Fund Hires Internal Real Estate Manager
Submitted January 25, 2012, 8:15 AM
Lindsey Adams has been named senior portfolio manager for real estate for the San Francisco City and County Employees’ Retirement System, filling a post that has been vacant for nearly two years.
Adams has held the position of securities analyst for the pension fund in its real estate investment department since 2009. Her duties as a securities analyst included suggesting and researching potential new investments for real estate.
“The plan going forward is that we will begin the process of starting to implement the real estate investment plan that was approved last year by the pension fund,” Adams said. “We were not really able to do this until this position was filled, despite having a good amount of capital allocated to the asset class.”
San Francisco City and County still has two open positions within its investment staff. The managing director of private markets would oversee both real estate and alternative investments and would be Adams’ boss. The other position is deputy director of investments, the pension fund’s version of a chief financial officer. The pension fund hopes to fill both positions in the next two months.
San Francisco City and County last year approved its fiscal year 2012 investment plan for real estate, calling for up to $450 million in investments. However, at this point, none of this capital has been committed. “I would like to be able to invest a portion before we approve out next fiscal-year investment plan,” Adams told The Registry. That new plan is expected to go to the board in May. “It’s highly unlikely that all of this capital will be invested, just from a timing issue,” she said.
The fiscal year 2012 investment plan called for up to $450 million to be invested in real estate. The vast majority—up to $400 million—was slated for non-core investments. Core real estate is the least risky, typically consisting of well-leased newer properties, in larger metropolitan areas. Non-core generally involves greater risk with the hope of achieving greater returns. Part of the strategy would be to buy existing properties that need renovation, redevelopment or a capital infusion.
Adams suggested the fund could also meet that investment goal by placing capital in a variety of close-end, commingled funds. “This could be accomplished through either an existing manager that we have a current relationship with or a new manager,” Adams said.
The other $50 million was to be invested with the pension fund’s existing managers for publicly traded real estate investment securities.
San Francisco City and County has a real estate portfolio valued at $1.4 billion. This represents 9.5 percent of its $15 billion in total plan assets. The targeted allocation for real estate is 12 percent.
