United Parcel Service, Atlanta, is finishing an asset-liability study of its $3 billion defined benefit plan that may result in manager changes, said Mike Plourde, investments manager. The study, by RogersCasey, will be presented to board members at the end of the month. A decision on whether manager searches will be needed will be made in the next couple of months, he added.
The University of Wisconsin System, Madison, is seeking money managers in six areas for its $250 million endowment fund, said David M. Konshak, assistant trust officer. For U.S. equities, it seeks core and small-cap managers. It also seeks to fill an active MSCI EAFE mandate. In bonds, it is searching for U.S. long-term, U.S. intermediate-term and non-U.S. managers. The system could hire more than one firm in each area. It will keep the searches open until May 23 and hopes to make decisions by the November.
The incumbents, whose contracts expired, are ANB for active U.S. stocks, Babson-Stewart Ivory for EAFE stocks, Firstar for core equities, Lieber for small-cap stocks, M&I Investment for intermediate-term bonds and Standish Ayer & Wood for long-term bonds and non-U.S. bonds. The incumbents are eligible to be considered. No consultant is being used.
A consortium including Bankers Trust, New York Life, two private equity funds of H&Q Asia Pacific and four private equity funds of HSBC Private Equity invested $50 million in a planned community in Shanghai.
So far, about 12 pension funds invested in the project through the private equity vehicles. Barry Hansen, president of Sealand Housing, project developer, said funds investing include those of US WEST, which invested in the HSBC Private Equity 1 fund, and Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, which invested through the Asia Pacific Growth Fund II. It was not known how much each allocated. The project, Shanghai Links Executive Community, is a $500 million development expected to be completed in 1999.
Federal lawmakers are drafting legislation that would let small investment advisers manage pension assets after their SEC registation lapses, Robert E. Plaze, associate director of the SEC's investment management division, said at a meeting yesterday.
The legislation to amend ERISA is required because by late 1998, as many as 16,000 investment advisers with less than $25 million in assets will no longer be regulated by the SEC under a securities law enacted in October. Small advisers will be supervised solely by state securities agencies. ERISA allows money managers to invest pension plan money only if they are registered with the SEC, or are banks and insurance companies.
Bankers Trust started what it calls the first stable value mutual fund. The BT PreservationPlus Fund will consist of synthetic GICs. Most stable value funds are either commingled trusts or bank pooled funds regulated by insurance or banking officials. A stable value mutual fund would be regulated by the SEC and subject to the same disclosure and daily net asset value requirements as other mutual funds.
