The South Dakota Investment Council is backing opportunity funds managed by Blackstone and Lone Star.

The US pension fund has approved two $300m (€267m) commitments to the managers, according to a board meeting document.

Both investments – to Blackstone Real Estate Partners Europe V and Lone Star Real Estate Fund V – are follow-on commitments.

Matthew Clark, state investment officer at South Dakota, said: β€œWe have invested with Blackstone in many of its investment funds in Europe and all of their funds in the US and have many previous commitments with Lone Star.

β€œWe have been pleased with their previous performance.” 

There is no guarantee the full $300m allocations will be placed into each fund.

South Dakota will announce the final amount at its June board meeting.

Blackstone is seeking a €7bn capital raise.

The manager is co-investing €100m in the vehicle, which will target Europe.

Around 60% of the capital is planned for investment in the UK, Germany and France.

Ireland, Spain and Italy are other potential markets.

Limited partners in the fund are projected to achieve a 15% net IRR with a 1.7x equity multiple.

Lone Star V will be investing mainly in the US and Europe, as well as Asia-Pacific, with a $5.5bn hard cap on the fund.

South Dakota makes investments in real estate though limited partnerships, without a set targeted allocation, investing when it finds an attractive investment opportunity.

The investor’s real estate portfolio now makes up 11% its $10.7bn in total plan assets.