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CalPERS commits $400m each to cleantech, emerging market ventures22/02/2007. Source: AltAssets. 
 The California Public Employees' Retirement System will commit $400m each to two new private equity vehicles: one focusing on clean energy and technology investments, and the other on global emerging markets. The investments will be managed by specialised teams within Pacific Corporate Group, headquartered in La Jolla, California.
The clean energy and technology programme will concentrate on energy, water and material technologies, products and services that reduce carbon emissions, conserve natural resources and improve energy efficiency. CalPERS will be the anchor investor in the PCG cleantech fund, which will also raise capital from other institutional investors. The fund will pursue investments in cleantech partnerships as well as co-investments in cleantech companies alongside other general partners.
The new investments will augment CalPERS's Alternative Investment Management Program's current Environmental Technology Program, which has $200m in cleantech commitments to seven partnerships.
CalPERS will also commit $400m for new private equity partnership investments in emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia. The new emerging markets fund will focus on investing in partnerships that employ a variety of investment styles and strategies including venture capital, buy-out and acquisition financing, growth and expansion capital, and mezzanine financing.
'Our partner has a very good emerging markets team that will access a broader range of institutional quality funds than we have had in the past,' said CalPERS CIO Russell Read. 'This new vehicle will give us exposure to promising firms that may become significant players down the road. This initiative also will help us advance the strategic realignment of the AIM Program that we began last year.'
Consistent with the strategic realignment, the AIM Program is emphasising larger relationships with a smaller number of partners while utilising customised investment vehicles as an efficient means to deploy significant capital in attractive segments of the market, including emerging markets, cleantech, and other market niches targeted by the System, CalPERS said in a statement.
CalPERS has assets totalling more than $230bn.
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