El Paso (Texas) City Employees' Pension Fund is doing a liability and asset allocation study, said Robert B. Ash, pension administrator. William M. Mercer Investment Cosulting is assisting in the study for the $330 million fund, designed in part to see if the fund's assets can meet projected liabilities. Its allocation now is 65% stocks and 35% bonds.
Fund officials will meet soon to decide whether to take action.
Clarks Cos., Newton Upper Falls, Mass., likely will search for a bundled provider for its 401(k) plan in the next year, said James Salzano, senior vice president and CFO. The plan has $12 million in assets, according to Money Market Directory. The company currently uses Sedgewick Nowles as record keeper and offers several types of funds to employees.
Clarks also hired SEI as a manager of managers for its defined benefit plan, which has in excess of $25 million in assets. SEI replaces Alex Brown, Rittenhouse, Westfield, and Radnor. Each firm had been meeting its benchmarks, but the company wanted a single point of service for the fund, Mr. Salzano said. SEI also will be considered in the 401(k) plan search, he added.
Berkshire County Retirement System, Pittsfield, Mass., will be managed by the Massachusetts Pensions Reserve Invest-ment Management Board effective April 1.
PRIM will manage the system's $53 million in assets for at least five years, said Peter G. Arlos, county treasurer. The fund now uses Freedom Capital as a balanced manager.
Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, Oakland, Calif., hired Autranet as a commission recapture firm to handle 25% of the trades of the $38 million large-cap equity portfolio managed by RCM Capital.
About two-thirds of the commission proceeds are expected to be refunded to the $200 million fund, said Hugo Wildmann, administrator. Another commission recapture firm is expected to be chosen shortly, he added. The search was done in-house.
Bank of New York will begin offering a real-time market-value-weighted index to track the performance of all American and global depository receipts trading on U.S. stock exchanges.
The new Bank of New York ADR index consists of 431 companies from 36 countries, with a total market capitalization of more than $3.1 trillion.
The index contains a composite index and four regional indexes: the Europe ADR index, Asia ADR index, Latin America ADR index and Emerging Market ADR index. Selected country indexes also are available.
Bank of New York also will soon provide industry sector sub-indexes. Eventually, it will create separate indexes to track global depository receipts listed on European stock exchanges.
