Seattle City Employees' Retirement System will press managers for details about their trading policies in the $1.5 billion system's newly launched RFP for one or two "domestic equity-plus" managers. Funding will come from reducing a $360 million S&P 500 index fund run by Barclays Global Investors.
The proposal requires managers to submit details on best execution and trading costs, including information on soft dollars, commissions and commission recapture. Fund officials also seek enough trade-level data to allow them to calculate managers' trading costs on their own. "It's something we've been wanting to do for several years now," but the fund had encountered resistance from traders, said Mel Robertson, assistant executive director. Fund officials are concerned about subsidizing trades that benefit other clients and ensuring that plan assets are used properly, he said.
