St. Louis Employees' Retirement System hired Principal Global Investors to run about $48 million in an open-end core diversified real estate portfolio, a new asset class for the $482 million pension plan, said Dan Holmes, managing director of consultant Summit Strategies. Funding will come from rebalancing domestic equities and reducing all of the plan's fixed-income portfolios, Mr. Holmes said. The change follows an asset-liability study completed last year. The plan's new asset allocation is 45% domestic equity; 25% fixed income, down from 35%; 20% international equity; and 10% real estate.
Separately, trustees put active domestic large-cap equity managers Wellington and RCM Capital on watch because of performance and personnel matters, Mr. Holmes said. Wellington runs a $62 million value portfolio and RCM runs $56 million in growth. The board will re-evaluate both firms in October, he said. Neither Lisa Finkel, Wellington spokeswoman, nor Jennifer Callahan, RCM spokeswoman, would comment.
