The $6.2 billion San Francisco City & County Employees' Retirement System expanded its soft-dollar commission arrangement by engaging the broker Honig and Co. for fixed-income trading.
The fund is getting soft-dollar commissions from some equity brokers, but this is the first time it has approved an arrangement to secure soft dollars for fixed income trading, said Clare Murphy, CEO.
The $1.9 billion Federal Express Corp. pension fund, Memphis, Tenn., plans to increase its allocation to managed futures by $10 million to $15 million by the end of the year, said William Gurner, manager-trust investments.
The increase will go into an existing passively managed futures portfolio run by Mount Lucas Group.
Mr. Gurner declined to disclose how much the fund has invested in managed futures.
Lehigh Valley Health Network is restructuring its $52 million defined benefit fund, $124 million depreciation fund and $12 million foundation fund, said Richard W. Phillips, treasury accountant.
It hired Dimensional Fund Advisors to run 40% of the equity allocation of all three funds in large value stocks and 5% in small value.
Jennison Associates will run 40% in large growth, and Investment Advisers Inc., 5% in small growth. Miller Anderson & Sherrerd will run 10% of the equity allocations in international.
First Fidelity Bancorp. will run the longer-term fixed-income allocations, and Wilmington Trust Co., the enhanced short-duration fixed income.
Lehigh dropped Chicago Corp., Newbold's Asset Management and Dreyfus as equity managers for the pension fund. It also dropped Boston Co., an equity manager for the depreciation fund, and Meridian Asset Management and First Fidelity, balanced managers for the foundation.
The pension fund allocation will be 70% equity and 30% fixed income, up from the current mix of 60% equity and 40% fixed income. The depreciation fund mix stays at 30% equities, 50% intermediate fixed income and 20% enhanced cash. The foundation fund mix will remain 55% equities and 45% fixed income.
Mellon Bank will be master trustee for the three funds. First Fidelity had been master trustee for the pension fund and Wilmington Trust trustee for the depreciation fund. First Fidelity and Meridian Asset Management were dropped as trustees of the foundation.
Yanni-Bilkey Investment Consulting assisted.
The $2.2 billion San Diego County Employees' Retirement Association is calling for a meeting of its partners in LaSalle Fund IV to discuss performance and other concerns about the closed-end real estate fund, said Gary Kaku, chairman of board of the San Diego fund.
He said other topics of concern are property management fees, asset management and the appraisal process. He said he'll hold the meeting if partners representing half the fund's investments attend. The realty fund has about $450 million in assets, Mr. Kaku said.
Ingersoll International hired Stein Roe & Farnham for a $36 million balanced portfolio. The assets had been managed in-house in fixed income. Ingersoll has about $100 million in employee benefit assets.
Paul F. Healey says he was fired Nov. 18 from his job as head of institutional marketing at MFS Asset Management. The company had issued a release saying he left to pursue other interests.
"Needless to say I was also shocked" by the termination, he said in an interview. He declined to comment further.
In the news release, MFS said John Gee has been named managing director of global sales and marketing to replace Mr. Healey. Mr. Gee had been general manager of MFS' Sydney, Australia, office.
John B. Guerard Jr., a former associate of Harry Markowitz, joined Vantage Global Advisors as senior vice president and director of research, a new position. He was vice president of research at Daiwa Securities Trust, where he said he built the underlying stock selection model that went into Mr. Markowitz's optimization model. At Vantage, he will develop enhanced U.S. and international stock selection models.
He expects to add derivatives to the models.
Union files 2 proposals
The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union filed shareholder proposals with Sears, Roebuck and Osh Kosh B'Gosh, urging them to adopt the Labor Department's "high performance workplace" principles.
