Illinois Police Pension Appoints Greg Turk as Deputy CIO Amidst Private Markets Push

Greg Turk

The Illinois Police Officers’ Pension Fund announced Monday that it has appointed Greg Turk as its new deputy CIO as the fund aims to develop a private markets strategy. Turk’s appointment is effective immediately.

Turk, who has experience in private market investing at a family office and a public pension fund, will oversee the implementation of the fund’s private markets strategy as it aims to increase its allocations to that trending sector and alternative investments generally.

“I am thrilled to add someone of Greg’s caliber to our investment team and am excited to jump start the implementation of IPOPIF’s private market investments,” said Kent Custer, the IPOPIF CIO, in a statement. “Greg has an impressive record of accomplishment and demonstrated strong success in public and private market investments and at the total fund level.”

The IPOPIF is a consolidation of 357 local Illinois police pension funds, whose assets continue to be owned locally. Its initial investment structure was predominantly passive investments in public market investments, according to Custer.

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“Following the asset aggregation, investment staff has been strategically adding actively managed investments, including international small cap, bank loans and emerging markets,” Custer says.

In the long term, the pension fund plans to allocate 20% of its assets to private markets, including 7% to private equity, 5% to private credit, 5% to real estate and 3% to infrastructure.

With $10.4 billion in assets, the fund currently allocates the majority of its assets to equities, with a 58.3% allocation to growth equities, another 15.8% is in fixed income and 5.5% in real assets, while 20.4% is in risk mitigation strategies.

Custer says that the pension fund is developing a plan for its private markets strategy, although initial plans, including pacing, have not been shared with the fund’s board of trustees yet.

Prior to his new role at the IPOPIF, Turk was the CIO of NG4 Capital, a family office where he worked within private markets investments. He also spent nearly 20 years at the Teachers’ Retirement System of Illinois, most recently as director of investments.

Turk earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and banking from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.