Milwaukee County Employees’ Retirement System board pulled $58.3 million from the Mellon Capital Market Completion Fund, a midcap equity index fund, and terminated active equity portfolios run by Goldman Sachs, T. Rowe Price and Capital Guardian, which ran a total of $144 million, said Jac Amerell, director of the $1.5 billion system. All were terminated for performance.
From the terminated Mellon fund, $18.3 million will be added to $131 million Milwaukee County already has in Mellon’s S&P 500 index fund. Also, $5 million each will go to existing active domestic equity managers: Artisan, midcap growth, raising the total it runs for the fund to $32 million; MFS, midcap growth, to $27 million; Westfield, small-cap growth, to $32 million; and Ariel, small-cap value, to $35 million. The remaining $20 million will go to active domestic midcap core equity manager FIRMCO, which will manage $75 million.
The $73 million managed by Goldman Sachs in domestic large-cap growth will be placed in a Mellon domestic large-cap growth index fund.
Also, the $32 million run by T. Rowe Price in international equities and $39 million run by Capital Guardian in emerging markets were added to an existing active international equity portfolio managed by Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo, which will now run $96 million. Capital Guardian will continue to manage $30 million in active international small-cap equities, Mr. Amerell said.
In addition, the board accepted consultant Mercer’s recommendation to combine its 10.5% allocation to international equities with its 2.6% allocation to emerging markets into a single 13.1% international target. The system’s international equity managers, Capital Guardian and Grantham Mayo, will have the ability to move assets in to and out of emerging markets as they see fit.
Andrea Thabat, Goldman Sachs spokeswoman, declined comment. Officials at T. Rowe Price, Capital Guardian and Mellon Capital did not respond to calls for comment by press time.
