Milwaukee County Employees' Retirement System reduced its recent commitments to private equity fund of funds managed by Baring Private Equity Asia, Barings, Fairview Capital Partners and Greenspring Associates to $64 million from $80 million.
At its March 25 meeting, the $1.7 billion pension fund's board voted to reduce the commitment from the previous amount approved Feb. 26, after Marquette Associates recommended reducing the total by 20%. Marquette anticipates "some write-downs in the portfolio, and also that the liquidity will slow down dramatically for at least some time," recently released meeting minutes show.
The recommendation was in part due to the pension fund's overall private equity portfolio being overweight about 4%, or $60 million, the minutes show.
The pension fund issued two RFPs in October for global diversified fund-of-funds managers and small-buyout fund-of-funds managers. The styles of the fund-of-funds portfolios the selected managers are running was not disclosed.
Barings, BPEA, Fairview and Greenspring to run portfolios of about $22 million (down from $28 million), $24 million (down from $30 million), $10 million (from $12 million) and $8 million (from $10 million), respectively, recently released meeting minutes show.
As of Jan. 31, the actual allocation to private equity was 11.6%; the target is 10%.
Marquette Associates assisted.
Erika Bronikowski, interim director-retirement plan services, could not be immediately reached for further information.
