Salem (Mass.) Retirement System will add allocations to real estate and domestic small-cap managers.
The $55 million pension fund plans to allocate between $3 million and $4 million to each of the asset classes. Funding will come from the proceeds of the portfolio of 1838 Investment Advisors, terminated last year. The $55 million system will send out RFPs for managers in about a month, said Larry Marino, the Segal Advisors consultant who is assisting.
The fund also plans to revamp its investment policy statements. The fund has about 57% of its assets in stocks and 42% in bonds.
Most U.S. CFOs aren't worried about how the Asian market turmoil will affect their companies, a survey says.
In the Financial Executives Institute/Duke-Fuqua School of Business corporate outlook survey, 63% of U.S. CFOs predict the troubles in Asia will have no effect on their companies' profits over the next year. But 16% of the CFOs, including those at one-third of manufacturers, said they expect downward pressure on the prices of their products because of the Asian problems. The CFOs also expect the heavy pace of merger and acquisition activity to continue in 1998, but at a slightly slower pace than in 1997.
