New York State Common backs KKR's third Asian fund

NYSCRF said in a statement that the investment closed on March 31, the same day that KKR Asian Fund III reached a first close of $5.78 billion. The vehicle, for which a private placement memorandum was issued in early November with a target of $7 billion, is expected to have a full corpus of $9.2 billion, including contributions from the firm’s balance sheet and management team.

William Joseph Janetschek, KKR's CFO, said during the first quarter earnings call that the firm was confident of hitting the hard cap later in the summer. He added that KKR invested $1.9 billion over the course of the three months, taking Fund II to full deployment.

Other disclosed LP commitments include $150 million from Minnesota State Board of Investment, $50 million from Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System, $30 million from Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund, $500 million from Washington State Investment Board, $200 million from New York State Teachers’ Retirement System, and $40 million from Public Safety Personnel Retirement System of the State of Arizona.

KKR raised $4 billion for its first Asian fund in 2007 and $6 billion for its second in 2013. NYSCRF is an LP in both vehicles, having committed $50 million and $150 million, respectively. It also invested $125 million in KKR’s China growth fund, which closed at $1 billion in 2010.

As of March 2016, the pension fund had $178.6 billion in assets, of which 7.8% – or $13.9 billion – was deployed in private equity. It also had 6.9% in real estate, 0.3% in real assets, and 1% in special situations. The target allocation for private equity is 10%.

NYSCRF has traditionally focused on pan-Asian buyout funds. In addition to KKR, it is an investor in CVC Capital Partners’ two most recent vehicles, RRJ Capital’s second and third funds, and TPG Capital’s fifth Asia fund, and Affinity Equity Partners’ fourth regional vehicle. The pension fund also backed Hony Capital’s fifth China fund and has pan-Asia special situations exposure through Clearwater Capital Partners’ third and fourth vehicles and ADV Partners’ debut fund.

In addition, NYSCRF works with Asia Alternatives, having committed $50 million to each of the firm’s last three fund-of-funds products. This is supplemented by two separately managed accounts – through which the pension fund has invested in funds managed by the likes of CDH Investments, Hony, Hahn & Company, RRJ, Farallon Capital, Saratoga Capital, Anchor Equity Partners, and ChrysCapital Partners.

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• Topics
• Fundraising
• LPs
• Buyout
• Asia
• KKR
• New York State Common Retirement Fund