PennSERS commits $50m to Primavera’s second China fund

The GP, which was founded by Fred Hu, former Greater China chairman at Goldman Sachs, is understood to be targeting $1.5 billion for the vehicle. Primavera's debut fund closed at $1 billion in 2011 and targets a combination of growth, buyout and special situations investments.

PennSERS announced the Primavera commitment alongside performance data for the 2014 calendar year. Alternative investments was the best-performing asset class, delivering a return of 13.1%, compared to 6.7% for hedge funds and 6.3% for real assets. Overall one-year performance was 6.4%, net of fees. The five- and 10-year returns were 9.2% and 6.6%, respectively.

The pension system had $27.3 billion in assets under management as of September 2014, with 20.5% - or $5.58 billion - deployed in alternative assets. Of this, 12.3% was in private equity, 3.1% in special situations and 5% in venture capital. Real assets investments accounted for 16% of the portfolio, although only 3.5% was in privately-held assets.

Last October PennSERS announced a $50 million commitment to Hahn & Co's second Korea buyout fund, which closed at the hard cap of $1.2 billion in December. This was the system's first disclosed Asia-focused private equity investment since late 2013 when it agreed to put up to $50 million into a separate account managed by Asia Alternatives. A year earlier it committed $33 million to the vehicle.

PennSERS invested $50 million in each of Asia Alternatives' first three co-mingled fund-of-funds, the third of which closed at $1.5 billion in August 2012. It also used Asia Alternatives to get exposure to Hahn & Co's first fund via a $7 million separate vehicle.

As of year-end 2013, PennSERS' direct GP relationships in Asia included H&Q's Asia Pacific Growth Fund III, Bain Capital Asia Fund, Baring India Private Equity Fund III, Excelsior Capital Asia Partners III, Newbridge Asia III and IV, TPG Asia V, Avenue Asia Special Situations Fund IV and CID Greater China Venture Capital Fund II.

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• Topics
• LPs
• Fundraising
• North America
• Greater China
• GPs
• Primavera
• Hahn & Co
• Fundraising
• China
• LPs
• GPs
• Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System (PennSERS)