Japan’s state-owned Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), the world’s largest pension, has made a $1 billion commitment to real estate funds managed by Brookfield Asset Management and Blackstone, recent filings show.
Brookfield’s fifth opportunistic fund, Brookfield Strategic Real Estate Partners V, received $500 million in commitment from GPIF out of a target of around $15 billion. The investment, which is GPIF’s second direct real estate fund investment, targets investments in a broad range of assets from office, retail, multifamily, logistics, and hospitality to the alternative spaces such as senior living and self-storage, according to a separate filing.
Conor Teskey, President of Brookfield, said in its third-quarter earnings report on Monday that the fund is expected to secure its first close in Oct-Dec “with fundraising momentum continuing to ramp up in the fourth quarter”.
GPIF’s first direct real estate fund investment was in April. The pension fund invested $500 million in Blackstone’s tenth real estate fund, Blackstone Real Estate Partners X, the largest-ever drawdown fund which closed at $30.4 billion in April.
Unlike Brookfield, Blackstone is pivoting away from traditional asset classes like commercial real estate, which is exposed to post-pandemic headwinds, and instead focusing on logistics, rental housing, hospitality, and data centres among others.
GPIF’s commitments to Brookfield and Blackstone funds have a 10-year investment period that could be extended, according to the filings.
GPIF had 219.32 trillion yen ($1.47 trillion) in assets under management as of September 30.
