Permanent School Fund

Do you, are you at home right now thinking, oh yeah, I want to give up something I own personally so someone else can profit off of it and I don't get a piece of that? BS.

Well, I wonder how the permanent school fund factors into all this.

And I remember that public education was a big issue for you in your initial campaign, in your first term in the House.

And so maybe you could explain a little bit about how the permanent school fund works and maybe additionally how the Railroad Commission intersects with that job.

Okay.

Yeah.

You did, you did, it's helpful.

Okay, good.

They're legal to do.

Case in point, the Texas Permanent School Fund.

Now, I was in the municipal bond business for a while, and I became an expert in municipal bonds, and some of the bonds in Texas are backed by a permanent oil revenue fund.

It's the Texas Permanent School Fund for school bonds, and oil and gas revenues support it, and they support the University of Texas.

The Texas Permanent School Fund is technically a sovereign wealth fund, which serves to provide revenues for funding of public primary and secondary education in the United States, specifically in the state of Texas, the Lone Star State.

Its assets include many publicly owned lands within Texas and various other investments.

And on those lands, there are oil wells.

Learn more at gcmgrosvenor.com. I'm joined today by Ali Houshmand, who leads the non-traded REIT initiatives for EQT Real Estate, where he manages the formation, strategy, and portfolio construction of EQRT, the first open-ended real estate vehicle in the non-traded REIT space.

He previously spent close to a decade at the Texas Permanent School Fund, where he helped build that $50 billion endowments real estate program.

Welcome, Ali.

Thanks for joining me today.

And we will come back to that point you made about markets turning, because I certainly think real estate is a market that can be unforgiving.

at times in the depth and I think severity of the turns.

But I'd love to then move to another formative time for you, I'm sure, your time with Texas Permanent School Fund.

Working in a public fund is a different kettle of fish, I suppose you would say, in terms of just the opportunity set, but also some of the constraints.