California State Teachers' Retirement System officials, Sacramento, could decide a number of key asset allocation issues at an investment committee meeting Wednesday.
Issues include the allocation of assets between active and passive domestic equity management, the viability of global bonds and the future role of active management of international equities.
Other issues include the possibility of CalSTRS staff internally managing passive U.S. equities, evaluation of the securitized real estate market and the best combination of real estate staff, advisers and consultants. CalSTRS has $75 billion in assets.
Western Metal Industry Pension Fund, Seattle, increased its venture capital commitment to Olympic Venture Partners for its $600 million pension fund. It added $5 million, bringing the manager's total assignment to $12 million. Olympic's focus includes technology. Assets will come from cash flow. R.V. Kuhns & Associates assisted.
Auburn University, Auburn, Ala., will increase its equity allocation to 60% of its $180 million endowment fund, said Charles Bruce, director-treasury services. It will boost the allocation from 55%, increasing the assignments of INVESCO and Scudder, its current equity managers.
Funding will come from cash flow. Officials will decide which manager will receive the additional allocation as new money is invested every quarter. Both now split the equity allocation. Smith Barney assisted in the change.
Buck Consultants acquired Hannan Superannuation Australia, the pension administration and consulting business of the Hannan Group, Australia's largest privately owned insurance brokerage company. The acquisition is part of a strategic alliance between the firms designed to provide a higher level of pension and consulting services to Hannan's clients.
Standard & Poor's Financial Information Services is introducing a composite index designed to track the performance of REITs. The new index consists of 100 REITs and covers more than 80% of the securitized real estate market. Issues have to be traded on a major U.S. stock exchange to qualify and must have a market value of at least $100 million. The REIT Composite index is composed of equity, mortgages and hybrids. Roughly 25% of the index is retail; 23% is apartments; 16% is industrial and offices; and the rest is in mortgages and hybrids.
Federated Global Research created a new fund-of-funds, the Federated International Growth Fund. The fund's manager, Drew J. Collins, invests in five Federated international equity mutual funds - the Federated Asia Pacific Growth Fund, the European Growth Fund, the International Small Company Fund, the Emerging Markets Fund and the Latin American Growth Fund.
SEARCHES & HIRINGS
Memphis (Tenn.) Light, Gas & Water Division Pension System, with $760 million in assets, is searching for a consultant. Responses to the RFP are due July 19.
A decision is expected by mid-August. The search is part of a periodic review undertaken every few years. Incumbent Consulting Services Group is in the running, said John W. McCullough, manager-finance and treasury.
California Public Employees' Retirement System, Sacramento, committed $150 million to Behrman Capital II L.P., tripling an investment made in the general partner's first fund.
The $110 billion pension fund wants to put $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year in partnerships and $500 million to $1 billion in new direct investments, said Brad Pacheco, a CalPERS spokesman.
The commitment allows Behrman to reach its first closing with $300 million total, confirmed a spokesman for the general partner. Behrman Capital II will target buy-outs of emerging growth companies in information technology, health-care and contract manufacturing industries.
Teamsters Local 584 Pension Fund, New York, hired Putnam Institutional Management to run $15 million in midcap equities, a new style for the $120 million Taft-Hartley fund.
The new portfolio was funded by reducing the size of the portfolios run by existing U.S. equity managers 1838 Investment Advisors and Smith Barney Capital Management, said John Driscoll, co-counsel representing the union.
Prudential Securities assisted.
WHO'S NEWS
Bonnie R. Plunkett has been named vice president of marketing at Provident Capital Management.
She replaces Rick Roberts, who left the firm to join First Quadrant as marketing director of global products.
Ms. Plunkett previously was vice president sales and marketing at Meridian Investment Co. Her duties at Meridian were distributed to other staffers
