Washington state to increase real estate allocation

The Washington State Investment Board (WSIB) has recently approved a 2 percent increase to its long-term target asset allocation to real estate, raising it from 13 percent to 15 percent. This would give WSIB, which manages $91.4 billion for 33 separate funds for the state of Washington, the capability to invest an additional $1.8 billion in real estate in the future. The 2 percent increase to the long-term target real estate allocation was accompanied by a 2 percent decrease to the long-term target allocation to private equity, reducing it from 25 percent to 23 percent.

The WSIB has $9.2 billion (9.9 percent of AUM) invested in real estate, as of June 2013. Roughly 68 percent of the plan sponsor’s real estate holdings are in the United States, with European investments a distant second at 13.5 percent. Within the United States, WSIB invests the largest percentage of funds (19.5 percent) in California, followed