Tom Rest to join AIGGIG

Tom Rest is leaving his position as the manager of private equity at the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System to become a vice president at AIG Global Investment Group (AIGGIG), an AIGGIG spokesperson confirmed.

Rest will report to Steve Costabile, the managing director of AIGGIG’s private equity funds group. Costabile is responsible for sourcing, due diligence, product development and marketing.

The New York State Teachers’ Retirement System is a pension that provides retirement, disability and death benefits to New York State public school teachers and administrators. The fund has approximately $88 billion in assets under management. About five percent—$2.2 billion—is allocated to private equity investments. One of the ten largest retirement systems in the US, its membership consists of about 250,000 active members and 110,000 retirees and beneficiaries.

New York State Teachers’ has invested in a number of funds in the North American, Western European and Asia-Pacific regions. Its North American commitments last year included The Blackstone Group’s $15.6 billion Blackstone Capital Partners V, Bear Stearns’ Merchant Banking’s $2.7 billion Merchant Banking Partners III and TSG Consumer Partners’ $875 million TSG5.

AIGGIG is an asset manager with about $670.4  billion in assets under management. Its private equity assets amount to about $19.5 billion. Its types of investments include leveraged buyouts, venture capital, fund of funds, sponsored funds and private finance.

In December, AIGGIG closed AIG Private Equity Fund IV (PEP IV), a fund of funds vehicle, at $637.3 million. That value exceeded its target of $400 million and was much greater than that of PEP III, which closed at about $239 million in 2004. At the time of the close, the vehicle was fully committed with $212 million allocated to 27 investment funds, about $6 million in three direct investment and two secondary investments with an aggregate value of $2 million.