Certified by:

The three trillion dollar pension fund industry is tired of hearing the commonly stated phrase, "...they made millions by starting with billions...". This phrase is usually uttered when people are referring to the performance of pension fund real estate investments during the 1990-1991 recession. This thesis attempts to provide a base of research on pension fund real estate investment strategies that will assist pension funds in their future real estate investing. The thesis examines the goals and the processes of implementing those goals of the real estate investment strategies of the 4th and the 7th largest US pension funds. Each of these pension funds have multi-billion dollar real estate investment portfolios. The need for pension funds to select optimal real estate investment strategies is driven by three recent developments: the well-documented havoc which has been wreaked on pension fund real estate investments by the recession, the recent transformation of the real estate industry by the many new real estate investment vehicles which are available, and the current pension fund industry-wide underfunding problem