Teachers' Retirement System of the State of Illinois, Springfield...

Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois, Springfield, trustees rejected staff recommendations and did not approve the hiring of a real estate consultant at the Dec. 9 Investment Committee hearing in Chicago. The $22 billion defined benefit plan has $2.4 billion, or 10.7% of assets, invested in real estate, which must be reduced to 8% of assets to comply with the fund’s new asset allocation targets. Pension Consulting Alliance and Townsend Group were the finalists in the aborted search. The investment committee also recommended creating an emerging and minority-owned manager program and instructed staff and general consultant Strategic Investment Solutions to research a fund-of-funds approach and report at the February meeting. The hirings of emerging/minority-owned firms will be conducted separately from the fund’s previously reported search for nine new managers to fill gaps in its restructured asset allocation profile. As part of the restructuring, trustees are scheduled to hire two domestic all-cap growth equity managers and two domestic small-cap to midcap managers at the February board meeting, when the board also will consider restructuring the plan’s private equity investments. In March, the board will select one domestic large-cap value equity manager and one domestic enhanced large-cap value equity manager; and in May, the board will hire two active core international equity managers and one active core international fixed-income manager. SSgA and PIMCO temporarily are managing some liquidated assets until managers are hired. Strategic Investment Solutions is conducting the manager searches; information on RFPs is not yet available.