Christopher Witkowsky

The global development organisation sees an opportunity to help grow private equity secondaries in emerging markets.

Landmark’s Fund XIV reached its goal of $1.5bn, but has not yet officially closed. The target was lowered from the fund’s initial offering of $2.4bn.

The direct secondaries firm in 2004 acquired a large stake in email marketer eCircle - now owned by TA Associates - as part of a portfolio purchased from Deutsche Telekom.

The pension also spent $9m for a stake in Crestview Capital Partner’s second fund.

The secondaries market, which suffered from a major gap between seller and buyer expectations, recovered in the latter half of 2009 as bids went up and traditional buyers returned.

The secondaries market will become much more active in 2010 ‘as continued portfolio net outflows force investors to intensify their search for liquidity'.

Bids that came in for the private equity stakes were not ‘on par with the value of the assets’, the endowment’s CEO John Powers told PEO in an interview.

PCG Asset Management would run the programme, which would target original commitments of between $5m and $20m.

Three months after announcing its first ever private equity commitments, the $27bn pension is mulling a move into secondaries to diversify its vintage year exposure.

The Florida State Board of Administration has committed more than $1bn to the asset class in 2009.