Strategic Partners Acquires $3B CalPERS Fund Interests

By Keith Loria, Contributing Editor

Blackstone’s Strategic Partners Fund Solutions has signed a definitive Purchase and Sale Agreement with The California Public Employees’ Retirement System to acquire nearly $3 billion of global real estate fund interests.

Since its inception in 2000, Strategic Partners has built one of the industry’s largest and most comprehensive portfolios of private equity and real estate interests.

“This transaction highlights our ability to source and acquire large, complex portfolios and capitalize on the ongoing opportunities in the secondaries market while meeting the varied needs of sellers,” Verdun Perry, Strategic Partners’ co-head, said in a prepared release. “Strategic Partners’ relationships with global investors and real estate managers, coupled with a long history of executing secondary transactions on a fair, timely and confidential basis, enable us to transact on a variety of unique opportunities.”

According to terms of the deal, Strategic Partners will acquire CalPERS’ interests in 43 domestic and international real estate funds, allowing the California-based pension fund to offload its non-core holdings as well as simplify operations.

“This is a marquee transaction for the real estate secondaries industry. We partnered with CalPERS to deliver a solution for a premier organization seeking to reduce its non-strategic portfolio through the sale of non-core holdings,” Mark Burton, Strategic Partners’ head of real estate, said in the release. “Given our significant real estate experience developed through over 100 real estate secondary transactions since 2001, and our strong coverage of the 43 funds in this transaction, we were able to execute a complex transaction in a relatively short amount of time.”