Calpers returns to private equity market: report

(Reuters) - California Public Employees' Retirement System, the largest U.S. public pension fund, is back in the market for stakes in private equity funds after selling $2 billion of partnerships earlier this year, Bloomberg said.

"It's now a better time to be a buyer of secondary (investments) than a seller," Leon Shahinian, Calpers' senior investment officer for alternative asset management, told the agency in an interview.

In the secondary market, investors trade interests in private-equity funds originally sold by buyout and venture capital firms, the agency said.

Calpers, which provides retirement and health benefits to 1.6 million active employees, has seen its assets decline by around $50 billion from the beginning of this fiscal year through October 10 to stand at $190 billion.

Shahinian told the agency Calpers sold stakes in 80 partnerships managed by 60 firms at the end of 2007, likely for higher prices than what they would get now. He declined to give further details.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; editing by John Stonestreet)