CA Retirement fund to buy 275 million stake in Silver Lake Partners

By Margarita Snegireva. The California Public Employees' Retirement System agreed to buy 9.9 percent of Silver Lake Partners.

Photo: CA Retirement fund to buy 275 million stake in Silver Lake Partners

An announcement may come as soon as today, said the person, who declined to be named because the talks are secret. The stake is worth about $275 million, valuing Menlo Park, California-based Silver Lake at $2.75 billion, the New York Times reported earlier today, citing unidentified people briefed on the deal.

Calpers, which covers the benefits of more than 1.5 million Californian state and local government employees, has more than 400 private equity investments. Sacramento, California-based Calpers plans to reduce that number by concentrating assets in fewer fund managers.

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) provides pension fund, healthcare and other retirement services for approximately 1.5 million California public employees. As of October 2007, it owns $254.8 billion worth of stock, bonds, funds, private equity and real estate. It is the largest pension fund in the United States. CalPERS provides benefits to all state government employees and, by contract, to local agency and school employees. Many California counties and large cities have their own retirement system. California teachers are covered under CalSTRS (California State Teacher Retirement System), with funds in excess of $179.6 billion.

Silver Lake Partners is a notable American private equity firm founded in 1999 and headquartered on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California. It focuses its activities in the information technology industry. Notable investments it has made include the purchases of Avaya, Sabre Holdings, UGS Corp., Seagate Technology and Instinet.