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South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) invested most in Carlyle Group’s private equity funds at the end of 2020, followed by KKR & Co and Blackstone, according to the pension fund’s annual disclosure of alternative investment statistics released last Wednesday.

The pension scheme’s assets invested in private equity funds were 27.5 trillion won ($23.6 billion) at the end of 2020, up from 24 trillion won a year earlier. About 22 trillion won were put into blind-pool funds, with the remaining 5.5 trillion won invested in deal-by-deal funds.

NPS committed a total of 61.2 trillion won to more than 300 private equity funds, of which 34.2 trillion won was drawn down at the end of 2020.

Buyout funds accounted for the largest portion of the NPS’s private equity investment, followed by credit/mezzanine-focused funds, distressed funds, secondary funds and corporate partnership funds.

About 18.3 trillion won, or two-thirds of the total, was invested abroad, with North America accounting for 6 trillion won, Europe for 3 trillion won and Asia for 1.6 trillion won.

The largest share of the NPS’s money went to Carlyle Group. A total of 1.27 trillion won of the pension plan’s funds was invested across the global buyout firm’s eight vehicles, including 458.5 billion won in Carlyle Global Partners LP fund.

NPS also invested about 1.1 trillion won across KKR’s nine funds, including 348.2 billion won in the firm’s flagship North America fund.

A total of 849.6 billion won was invested in Blackstone’s four funds, including 401.7 billion won in Blackstone Capital Partners VII LP and 365.1 billion won in Blackstone Core Equity Partners LP fund.

NPS invested 644.4 billion won, 449.9 billion won, 442.9 billion won and 362.5 billion won, respectively, across funds of Silver Lake Partners, Permira, CVC Capital Partners and TPG at the end of 2020.

Among homegrown private equity firms, NPS invested most in STIC Investments, with 712.3 billion won put into the firm’s four vehicles. A total of 486.4 billion won was invested in five funds of IMM Private Equity and IMM Investment. Funds of VIG Partners and SkyLake Investment received investment totaling 345.3 billion won and 286.8 billion won, respectively, from the NPS. The pension plan also invested 88.3 billion won in two funds of North Asia-focused buyout firm MBK Partners.

NPS’s exposure to real estate investment was 29 trillion won at the end of 2020, with the pension plan investing across 190 vehicles globally. NPS committed 52.2 trillion won to real estate funds, of which 36.2 trillion won was drawn down.

Infrastructure investment assets accounted for 24.9 trillion won, which was invested across 185 funds globally. The pension fund committed 38 trillion won to infrastructure funds, of which 30 trillion won was drawn down.

NPS first disclosed its alternative investment statistics broken down by individual fund this year. This came after the pension plan’s fund management committee changed operating rules in July 2020 to raise the level of information disclosure in an effort to enhance transparency of the fund’s management. (Reporting by Hee-yeon Han)