The $10 billion Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund affirmed its commitment to investing in US infrastructure and said will explore increasing its exposure to the asset class next year.
The pension said in a statement it considers it “prudent investing” and “in the best interest” of the fund to help close the US’s infrastructure financing gap. CTPF has exceeded its 2 percent target allocation for the asset class and at 2.3 percent has $249 million invested.
“As responsible stewards of public funds, we appreciate the opportunities that infrastructure investments present – not just to meet our investment goals, but also to promote the public good,” CTPF said in a statement.
“We will explore whether we should increase that percentage,” CTPF chief investment officer Angela Miller-May told Infrastructure Investor. “[Infrastructure] has been one of the asset classes that contributed to outperforming our fund benchmarks.”
Miller-May said that since 2009 the pension has committed $336 million to four infrastructure strategies. CTPF has invested in JPMorgan Asset Management’s open-ended structure, Macquarie Infrastructure Partners II and European Infrastructure Partners III, and $50 million last year in Brookfield Infrastructure Fund III.
It’s a fairly new asset class, but I believe we’re going to continue to contribute and invest in infrastructure for some time to come,” she said.