General Motors Investment Management Corp., New York, manager of GM's pension assets, is exploring whether its global TAA program - initiated in 1996 - can be broadened to GM's entire $70 billion of defined benefit assets.
``We're trying to see if there are ways we can leverage results of the program,'' said R. Charles Tschampion, managing director of the GMIMCo investment strategy and asset allocation group.
More than $1.5 billion of GM's defined benefit assets are managed in a global TAA program that involves six portfolios. Four of the portfolios are managed by external money managers, the fifth is managed in-house and the sixth is managed collectively by the five managers.
Teachers' Retirement System of the City of New York trustees yesterday voted to increase the TAA portfolio managed by Mellon Capital by $278 million. The money came from its two other TAA managers: $157 million from Barclays Global Investors and $121 million from PanAgora.
Mellon managed $748 million for the $35 billion system before Thursday's decision; BZW ran $693 million; and PanAgora, $657 million. Board Chairman Melvyn Aaronson said Mellon's style best meets the system's needs.
The Labor Department yesterday asked for public feedback on the cross-trading of securities by employee benefit plans. Such trading, where two or more employee benefit plans swap securities held for them by the same investment adviser, currently is prohibited under federal pension law.
The Labor Department plans to use the public feedback to create standards and safeguards for granting exemptions from its ban on cross-trading.
Scudder Kemper Retirement Services, formed in the merger of Scudder Stevens & Clark and Zurich Kemper, pushed to ninth place in Pensions & Investments' annual ranking of the largest managers of defined contribution plan assets in mutual funds. The firm, which managed $10.5 billion in DC mutual fund assets as of Dec. 31, was the first new firm to break into the top 10 in several years.
The assets managed for DC plans in mutual funds by the top manager, Fidelity Investments, almost doubled in the past two years to $190 billion as of Dec. 31, from $96 billion as of Dec. 31, 1995.
The growth of the second- and third- largest managers also was strong over those two years. Total DC plan assets managed by Vanguard in its mutual funds increased to $82 billion from $51 billion; at Merrill Lynch, those assets increased to $58 billion from $39 billion.
State of Wisconsin Investment Board, Madison, will challenge an SEC decision to exclude its shareholder bylaw amendment resolution at Shiva Corp. The resolution asks the company not to reprice stock options without shareholder approval.
A spokesman said the $55 billion pension plan will appeal the decision to the full panel of SEC commissioners and consider other options.
