Christopher Witkowsky

The $231bn pension also plans to boost its exposure to private debt as well as specialty financing in emerging markets like China and Brazil.

The publicly listed firm collected $5bn for new strategies last year, including infrastructure, natural resources and mezzanine investments.

The Texas-based firm wanted to raise a separate vehicle that would have targeted water resources, food and agriculture – areas affected by climate change – but lack of LP support caused NGP to roll the strategy into the main fund.

What a $40m Orange County fund commitment gone wrong tells us about the new fundraising regime for public pensions.

The energy investor has set a target of $2bn for its fifth fund. MVision was the initial placement agent for the fund, but was off the assignment by the autumn of 2010.

The industry trade organisation has released the first of five reporting templates expected to help simplify and standardise reporting in the private equity industry.

Pying-Huan Wang has been hired to head infrastructure investments at Swiss-Asia Financial Services, which is preparing to launch its debut infrastructure vehicle, the China District Energy Fund. Wang was previously the head the private equity group at Deutsche Bank.

The Texas energy investor has swept past its $2.5bn target, even after losing a $40m commitment from a pension after a disagreement over a placement agent policy. The fund has received commitments from the New Mexico Educational Retirement System, the Texas County & District Retirement System and the Minnesota State Board of Investments.

The State Investment Council last week preliminarily approved increasing its alternatives allocation from 28% to 38%. The state's alternatives category includes infrastructure, among other asset classes.

The Government Pension Fund Global, with more than $400bn in assets, will look for environmentally related private equity and infrastructure opportunities, and also is planning an emerging-markets programme.