Strategic Partners Fund Solutions to Acquire $3 Billion of Secondary Real Estate Interests from CalPERS in Largest Secondary Transaction to Date
New York, New York, November 12, 2015. Blackstone (NYSE:BX) today announced that Strategic Partners Fund Solutions (“Strategic Partners”), Blackstone’s secondary and private market fund solutions business, has signed a definitive Purchase and Sale Agreement with The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (“CalPERS”) to acquire approximately $3.0 billion of global real estate fund interests.
Consistent with CalPERS’ strategic plan to actively manage its private markets portfolio, this transaction represents CalPERS’ sale of 43 international and domestic funds from its non-strategic real estate portfolio and marks the industry’s largest secondary transaction to date.
Verdun Perry, Co-Head of Strategic Partners, said: “Since our inception in 2000, we have 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. 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. We are pleased to partner with CalPERS to address their portfolio management needs.”
Mark Burton, Head of Strategic Partners’ Real Estate business said: “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. 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.”
About Strategic Partners
Strategic Partners was established in 2000 and is Blackstone’s dedicated secondary and private market fund solutions platform. Strategic Partners is currently comprised of 37 investment professionals led by Stephen Can and Verdun Perry and has raised over $19 billion dedicated to private equity and real estate secondary investing. Strategic Partners is recognized as an innovative and market-leading secondary investor, with broad transaction capabilities on a global scale through its network of strong relationships, as well as a leading reputation for transaction execution. Strategic Partners has completed over 850 transactions that represent interests in over 2,400 unique underlying funds managed by over 800 different financial sponsors. For more information, visit www.blackstone.com.
About CalPERS
For more than eight decades, CalPERS has built retirement and health security for state, school, and public agency members who invest their lifework in public service. Our pension fund serves more than 1.7 million members in the CalPERS retirement system and administers benefits for 1.4 million members and their families in our health program. CalPERS’ total fund market value currently stands at approximately $300 billion. For more information, visit www.calpers.ca.gov.
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