Calpers, the largest US public pension plan, is contemplating greater bets on personal fairness regardless of regardless of rising fears that increased rates of interest will curb the trade’s returns.

Chief govt Marcie Frost mentioned that the $442bn-in-assets retirement fund, one of many world’s largest buyers in personal fairness, will begin an intensive overview of its holdings on this sector subsequent month, including that there’s “urge for food” to extend its allocation.

The overview of Calpers’ $52bn personal fairness portfolio will happen almost 9 months after Nicole Musicco, who began as chief funding officer final yr, mentioned a choice to place the pension plan’s personal fairness programme on maintain for a decade between 2009 and 2018 had value it as much as $18bn of returns.

“If we [the Calpers board] had conviction that we might put extra money into personal fairness, the urge for food is there to do it from an investor perspective [and] from the funding workplace’s perspective,” Frost advised the Monetary Instances. “That’ll be a part of the asset allocation overview.”

Frost’s feedback come as many buyers fear about returns from the personal fairness trade, which has sucked in trillions of {dollars} of property over the previous decade.

The sector is now dealing with a lot increased debt financing prices, a deteriorating international financial outlook and issues concerning the potential for “stale” valuations lagging these of public markets. Final yr the chief funding officer at Danish pension fund ATP in contrast the personal fairness trade to a pyramid scheme.

Frost mentioned that there was “lots of debate” about personal fairness valuations, however believed the strategies used to worth Calpers’ portfolio have been sound and the truth that personal fairness valuations have been usually solely reviewed each quarter was not a serious difficulty for the fund.

“I don’t imagine that there’s an issue with the quarter lag on the valuation, it actually comes all the way down to the processes which are used [for the valuation],” she mentioned. “Our processes are fairly sound . . . we have now these finished by outdoors entities.”

Firstly of the 2022/23 monetary yr, Calpers elevated its goal allocation for personal fairness from 8 per cent to 13 per cent. This might rise additional if the overview offers the inexperienced mild.

Frost additionally mentioned the fund is “seeing extra deal stream alternatives” in personal debt following the collapse of Silicon Valley Financial institution and different lenders, and that the fund was able to take extra threat to revenue from such positions.

“Based mostly on present tightening within the banking trade, there are alternatives that we might pursue,” she mentioned.

“We’re in a spot the place we have now liquidity, we have now lots of dry powder that we are able to put to make use of,” she added. “So we expect that so long as we have now the suitable underwriting, this is a chance even in a distressed setting.”

Her feedback come after a turbulent interval for the banking sector, with Signature Financial institution and First Republic within the US additionally each collapsing and ailing Swiss lender Credit score Suisse being taken over by rival UBS.

The Federal Reserve this month warned of a “sharp contraction” in credit score. Large personal capital corporations similar to Blackstone, Apollo International and KKR have been exploring methods to extend their publicity to non-public credit score.

Frost mentioned the fund was ready for the additional threat that non-public debt investing might contain.

“You’re not going to get the returns of 6.8 per cent [the scheme’s annual target] long run with out taking up some threat,” she mentioned.