Middlesex Hot for PE –

The $530 million Middlesex County Employees’ Retirement System in Massachusetts has allocated an additional $15 million to private equity investments.

Middlesex County is one of a handful of institutional investors that have either made first-ever allocations to private equity in the last several months or have upped their private equity allocations (see “Desperate Pension Funds …,” page 5, October VCJ). Together the LPs represent about $1 billion of new money in the sector.

Middlesex County has invested with venture capital firms in the past. It has stakes in Charles River Partnership VI and Commonwealth BioVentures III.

The new $15 million represents 2.8% of the fund’s overall investment capital.

The pension fund’s private equity allocation will fall under its alternative investment portfolio. Middlesex increased its alternative investment allocation from 5% to 7% in October 2000 after noting that its alternative investments had “favorable returns” and “the expectation that a number of partnerships in which it is invested will be returning capital to limited partners in the coming years,” according to a report from the plan’s board.

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