The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or Calpers, is seeking buyers for roughly 300,000 acres of forestry largely in Louisiana amid a broader review of its timber holdings, according to people familiar with the matter. The woodland represents about one-fifth of roughly 1.3 million U.S. acres controlled by the Sacramento-based fund.
The move with timberland is the latest retrenchment for Calpers as it re-evaluates the costs and benefits of all holdings across its $305 billion portfolio and wrestles with how much risk to take to achieve targeted returns. The fund faces tens of billions in unfunded pension liabilities.
A decision to sell the Louisiana assets follows an announcement last September that Calpers would exit from a $4 billion investment in hedge funds due to concerns about complexity, costs and whether the commitment was large enough to affect overall returns.
