LACERS Builds Out Emerging Manager Private Credit Sleeve

The Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System (LACERS) is seeing early outperformance from its emerging manager program, even as a board trustee pushed back on the benchmarking methodology behind the results. The $28.8B pension backed the effort last year with four new commitments across private equity and private credit, part of a structural buildout that has pushed private credit to 17.9% of its emerging manager exposure following a 2023 revamp. Board president Annie Chao questioned whether broad asset-class comparisons obscure differences between strategies such as venture, buyout and special situations, prompting staff to revise the report's methodology going forward.

Among other allocators, the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System approved $385M in commitments across four private markets vehicles spanning infrastructure, private equity, and real estate, while also revising its alternative investment policy benchmark and advancing a new investment consulting contract with Meketa. Elsewhere, the Town of Plymouth Retirement System launched RFPs for its domestic large-cap value and international equity mandates, with incumbents Aristotle and Lazard under review ahead of seven-year contract renewals; the searches seek managers for allocations of roughly $11M-$12M and $15M-$16M, respectively.

In GP fundraising, Wind Point Partners closed its latest fund, Wind Point Partners XI, at $3.2B, exceeding its hard cap and marking the firm's largest vehicle to date after drawing commitments from more than 65 institutions across 17 countries in under nine months. And in fundraising launches, FoxPath Capital Partners entered the market with a debut credit secondaries fund targeting both GP-led and LP-led transactions.