Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., Juneau, will not make any further commitments to its in-state investment program it launched in 2018.
The $78.9 billion sovereign wealth fund's board approved a resolution at its April 12 meeting not to make any further commitments to the program following a reassessment of potentially expanding or continuing the program, according to an April 13 news release.
In September 2018, the board voted to increase its allocation to in-state investments to 5% of the total fund by 2023 from 2% in 2020, and a year later committed $100 million each to the Alaska Future Fund, managed by Barings, and Na'Nuk Fund, managed by McKinley Capital Management.
According to the resolution approved by the board, the managers have allocated the funds into roughly 20 investments, and that "the wisdom of expanding or continuing the program has been re-assessed" and the board intends not to allocate additional capital to the program while letting the existing funds being allowed to continue with Barings and McKinley Capital.
The news release did not provide further information on the reason the board decided not to continue the program, but a Feb. 15 presentation included with that meeting's material said Barings and McKinley Capital were the only firms to respond to the request for information in 2019. The presentation said other firms that expressed interest at the time decided not to respond to the RFI because after they assessed the market in the state, "the opportunity set of suitable private equity opportunities in Alaska that would meet the targeted returns and other requirements of the program was too limited relative to the amount of capital they were being asked to deploy," according to the presentation.
APFC spokeswoman Paulyn Swanson referred questions to the board resolution.
