Investment committee approves $68 million in private-market commitments for pooled endowment fund

The University of Alabama System Investment Committee approved resolutions to commit up to $68,000,000 to five private-market funds for the pooled endowment fund during an investment committee meeting (date not specified in the transcript).

Committee members voted to authorize commitments of up to $20,000,000 to Great Hill Equity Partners 9 LP; up to $15,000,000 to Menlo Ventures 17 LP; up to $10,000,000 to Menlo Inflection 4 LP; up to $8,000,000 to Atlas Venture Opportunity Fund 3 LP; and up to $15,000,000 to new manager Rockland Power Partners 5 LP. Justin Fanning, assistant vice chancellor for investments and treasury, read the resolutions and “recommended approval,” and the committee approved the resolutions by voice vote.

The decisions follow an investment presentation by Nolan Bean with Fund Evaluation Group, who briefed the committee on market conditions, portfolio positioning and pacing for private commitments. “If you look at the size of the portfolio today on the pooled endowment fund at over 2,600,000,000.0, roughly 30 percent of that is invested in privates,” Bean said. He described a modeled annual pacing target of roughly $180,000,000 for private commitments and said the system had committed $60,000,000 year to date and that the new approvals would bring that to roughly $130,000,000.

Bean told the committee that private markets have “slowed down” across fundraising, new investment activity and distributions, and that managers have been using structures such as continuation vehicles to provide liquidity. He said private-equity returns have lagged recent public market returns and that the committee’s adviser was emphasizing selectivity: “we need to be highly selective in the types of managers we invest in, the strategies we invest in, and a little bit of healthy skepticism and discipline and and not committing capital too too quickly.”

The approved commitments break down as follows: Great Hill Equity Partners 9 LP (up to $20,000,000, existing manager; growth-oriented private equity), Menlo Ventures 17 LP (up to $15,000,000, flagship venture fund), Menlo Inflection 4 LP (up to $10,000,000, later-stage follow-on fund), Atlas Venture Opportunity Fund 3 LP (up to $8,000,000, life-sciences/biotech venture follow-on), and Rockland Power Partners 5 LP (up to $15,000,000, new relationship focused on independent power producers and power generation infrastructure).

Bean characterized Rockland as an operator-focused firm that buys and fixes underperforming power-producing assets and cited demand for power from data centers and AI compute as a tailwind for that strategy. When a trustee asked about the firm’s U.K. exposure, Bean said the non-U.S. exposure would be “de minimis” and that Rockland would operate almost exclusively in the U.S.

Justin Fanning presented the resolutions to the committee as a package “for the pooled endowment fund only,” listing each investment and the corresponding dollar amount; after a motion and second to consider the items collectively, the chair called for a voice vote and the resolutions were approved. The transcript records the vote as “All in favor... Aye. All opposed, please say no. The resolutions are approved.” The transcript does not provide a roll-call tally or formal vote counts.

The committee discussion and the adviser's presentation emphasized a pacing rationale — the system remains below its modeled private-commitment target for the year and is proceeding with selectivity. No additional conditions, implementation timelines or specific reporting requirements were recorded in the transcript beyond the recommendation and the committee’s approval.