SACRAMENTO—The California State Teachers' Retirement System has allocated a total of $1.25 billion to real estate, the pension plan's latest quarterly report shows. CalSTRS' latest commitments range from property-level investment to value-add funds.

Largest of CalSTRS' newest commitments is a $300-million follow-on allocation toward Blackstone Property Partners, an open-ended fund with a core-plus investment strategy. Other large commitments include $200 million to a joint venture with LaSalle Investment Management to build an Asian portfolio; $150 million to Beacon Capital Partners VII, plus $100 million in co-investment capital; and a $200-million follow-on commitment to a JV with GI Partners, focusing on East Coast markets.

CalSTRS is making only one first-time commitment to a fund manager this round: $100 million to AEW Management's AEW Value Investment Asia II. The fund, which is targeting between $500 million and $750 million, plans to invest in a diversified portfolio across some of Asia's major markets, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Seoul, South Korea.

PERE reported that the allocation is among the largest that CalSTRS has devoted to real estate in a single quarter, and is its first to exceed $1 billion since the second quarter of 2012. It's still less than the $2-billion plus that CalSTRS earmarked in Q3 2007.

As of this past Dec. 31, CalSTRS had $22.7 billion of real estate commitments out of a total portfolio of $186.4 billion. It represented 12.18% of the portfolio; the pension plan has a target of 13.0% for real estate.

Slightly less than half the total is represented by core investments at $10.9 billion. Apartment investments represent 29% of the core portfolio, followed by office with 25%, retail with 15% and industrial with 14%, with the remainder devoted to international or niche categories. Opportunistic investments represent another $8.8 billion of the real estate pie, and value-add comprises just under $3 billion of the total.