Hirings

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Alaska Hotel & Restaurant Employees Pension Trust hired real estate managers AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust and Washington Capital Management to run a combined $13 million, according to a source close to the fund. The $166 million Taft-Hartley fund increased its real estate exposure to 10% from 1%. Funding came from terminating State Street Global Advisors, which ran a Lehman Brothers Aggregate bond index fund; the size was not available. Wurts & Associates assisted. Bruce Eliasen, senior fund officer for Alaska Hotel, did not return calls for comment.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The $170 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System committed $50 million to Guggenheim Structured Real Estate, a $353 million opportunistic fund investing in real estate debt.

According to a staff memo, other institutional investors in the fund include Guggenheim itself, $34.6 million; Oregon Public Employees' Retirement Fund, $50 million; State of Wisconsin Investment Board, $50 million; Hartford Insurance, $25 million; the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, $25 million; the MacArthur Foundation, $15 million; Allstate Insurance, $10 million; the New Hampshire Retirement System, $10 million; and the San Bernardino County (Calif.) Employees Retirement System, $10 million.

BETHESDA, Md. — Calvert Group hired Channing Capital Management to run the new Calvert Small Cap Value and Mid Cap Value funds. Eric T. McKissack, Channing's chief executive officer, will manage the two socially responsible funds, which screen for governance and ethics, workplace practices, environment, product safety, international operations and human rights.

PEORIA, Ill. — Caterpillar Investment Management hired McKinley Capital Management as interim subadviser of the $41 million Preferred International Growth mutual fund.

McKinley will become the permanent adviser pending shareholder approval. Marvin & Palmer was the fund's previous manager.

CHICAGO — The $10.3 billion Public School Teachers' Pension and Retirement Fund of Chicago hired Taplin, Canida & Habacht to handle $45 million and LM Capital Group to run $15 million, both in core fixed income, and Valenzuela Capital Partners to run $40 million in active domestic large-cap value equities, said Kevin Huber, chief financial officer.

Funding will come from a reallocation among the plan's existing managers. Specifics have not been finalized, but no managers will be terminated, Mr. Huber said. Mercer Investment Consulting assisted.

Separately, the fund hired Fremont Realty Capital to manage a $30 million real estate portfolio, said Mr. Huber. Officials also committed an additional $20 million to the PRISA II real estate fund, raising its total commitment to $45 million.

Funding will come from reducing the portfolios of its existing managers; specific firms have not been chosen and none will be terminated.

Townsend, the fund's real estate consultant, assisted.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The County Employees' Retirement Fund hired Weiss, Peck & Greer to run $25 million in active domestic core fixed income, said Richard D. Anderson, investment coordinator.

The $160 million plan funded the hiring by terminating another manager in the same asset class; Mr. Anderson would not identify the firm.

DORCHESTER, England — Dorset County Pension Fund hired Pioneer Alternative Investments and Gottex Fund Management to manage £22.5 million ($40.1 million) each in hedge funds of funds. Earlier this year, trustees at the %£950 million plan decided to allocate 5% of plan assets to absolute-return strategies.

The new allocation was funded from cash and from cuts in its internally managed £315 million passive U.K. equity portfolio, said Rod Purkiss, assistant director of resources. Bfinance advised.

LONDON — The London Borough of Greenwich Superannuation Fund hired State Street Corp. to provide fund accounting for the £500 million plan, said Hannah Grove, State Street spokeswoman. State Street is also the plan's global custodian. Dee Delany, borough spokeswoman, couldn't comment on the matter by press time.

DENVER — Holland & Hart LLP added the Lord Abbett Small-Cap Value fund as an investment option in its $140 million 401(k)/profit-sharing plan, said Vickie Gordon, benefits and compensation manager. The new option replaces the Fidelity Low-Priced Stock fund, which was recently closed to new participants.

The plan offers 14 investment options plus Fidelity's Freedom funds. Fidelity is bundled provider; Mercer Investment Consulting assisted.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Electrical Workers, IBEW, Local 728 hired Schott Group as investment consultant to the $26.3 million pension fund, said Ray Flach, financial secretary and benefits coordinator. The selection had been delayed more than once because of the wave of recent hurricanes, he said. Deutsche Asset Management, Smith Barney, Investment Performance Services and previous consultant Pension Fund Evaluations were finalists.

The search was part of a regular review by the plan's board of trustees.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Iron Workers, Local 512 committed a combined $25 million to American Realty Advisors Stable Value fund and another real estate fund, the $175 million plan's first real estate commitments, said Charlie Witt, business manager. Mr. Witt would not name the second fund because a contract with the firm has not been finalized.

Plan trustees have not determined how much each fund will receive.

Funding will come from reducing the portfolios of some of the plan's lower-performing managers, but those portfolios have not been selected.

Consultant Investment Performance Services is assisting.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville General Employees' Pension Fund rehired Taplin, Canida & Habacht to run $125 million in active domestic fixed income under a five-year contract with the $1.55 billion pension fund, said John Hudson, senior investment analyst for the city. Taplin, Canida's returns "have been quite good," Mr. Hudson said.

He noted that MBIA and BlackRock were among the finalists, although he would not name them all.

Under the contract, the pension fund has five one-year options after the initial five-year period, Mr. Hudson said.

The pension fund's asset allocation is 60% equity and 40% fixed income. Merrill Lynch assisted.

LOS ANGELES — The $7.85 billion Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System's board committed $15 million to TA Realty Fund VII. Funding came from the system's cash reserves.

BATON ROUGE — The $700 million Louisiana Firefighters' Retirement System hired six managers in three asset classes, said Steven Stockstill, executive director.

In active high-yield fixed income, Seix Investment Advisors will run $45 million, and Regions Morgan Keegan Trust will run $25 million. INVESCO will manage $25 million in a REIT. Both asset classes are new to the system. In active international equity, Fisher Investments, LSV Asset Management and Thornburg Investment Management will run portfolios of $50 million each.

Most of the funding will come from reducing active domestic core fixed income. Active core bond managers Hibernia, which managed $98 million, and Loomis, Sayles, which ran $24 million, were terminated. Assets also will be trimmed from the portfolios of existing active domestic core fixed-income managers.

Additional funding will come from the performance-based termination of Bank of Ireland, which ran $20 million in active international equity, he said, and $30 million that was parked in an EAFE index fund run by Northern Trust.

Steven Thorpe, spokesman for Hibernia, and Stephen Holland, spokesman for Bank of Ireland, did not return calls seeking comment by press time.

Consulting Services Group assisted.

LANSING, Mich. — The $4.4 billion Michigan Municipal Employees' Retirement System hired Evergreen International Advisors to manage $200 million in active global bonds, benchmarked to the Lehman Global Aggregate Bond index.

Funding will come from reductions to the system's core fixed-income portfolios, drawn evenly from passive and active strategies, Jeb Burns, chief investment officer, said in a statement.

NEW YORK — New York Life Capital Partners made a commitment to Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch's Euro Choice II buyout fund. Matt Cashen, analyst with New York Life Capital, declined to say how much was committed.

Joe Gieger, a managing partner and director of marketing at Lombard Odier, said the 2-year-old fund-of-funds specializes in leveraged buyouts of small- to midsize companies.

PEORIA, Ill. — The $8 million North Central Illinois Laborers Health and Welfare Fund hired Chicago Equity Partners to manage $6 million in active domestic short-term fixed income, said Lynn Marks, administrative manager.

Consultant Marquette Associates assisted, Ms. Marks said. Funding came from cash.

TIGARD, Ore. — The Oregon Investment Council hired Fidelity Management & Trust to run an $800 million enhanced EAFE portfolio and Walter Scott & Partners to manage $600 million in active international equities for the $45 billion Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, Salem, which the council oversees.

Funding for the Fidelity portfolio will come from reducing an equity index fund. Funding for the Walter Scott portfolio will come from rebalancing the fund's international portfolio, including a $200 million international equity portfolio that previously had been run by Putnam Investments.

Strategic Investment Solutions was the consultant.

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco City & County Employees' Retirement System committed up to $23 million to Apax Europe VI, a private equity fund that will invest primarily in Western European and Israeli companies. About 80% of the fund will be invested in growth capital and buyout transactions, with the remainder in later-stage venture capital.

Portfolio Advisors assisted.

DUBLIN — Sanlam Asset Management (Ireland) hired Credit Suisse Asset Management to subadvise £100 million ($178 million) in U.K. equities, said Jane Collins, CSAM managing director, institutional marketing. Credit Suisse already manages a U.K. equity portfolio for Sanlam; Ms. Collins would not give the asset size.

Deon Gouws, chief investment officer of affiliate Sanlam Multi-Manager International, did not return a call seeking comment by press time. Sanlam Asset has about $30.9 billion in investments under management.

AMSTERDAM — Stichting SPW hired State Street Corp. to provide fund accounting, foreign exchange, cash management and compliance monitoring for the €2.4 billion ($2.94 billion) pension fund, said Hannah Grove, State Street spokeswoman.

State Street subsidiary WM Co. will also offer a performance measurement service that "allows comparative benchmarking against a universe of Dutch pension funds," Ms. Grove said.

State Street already provides global custody and securities lending services for the pension fund.

"We enjoy a particularly strong relationship with State Street," Jan Kloet, general manager of the pension fund's administration office, said in a statement.

NEW YORK — Taiwan Greater China Fund hired Brown Brothers Harriman as custodian, fund accountant and administrator, confirmed Caroline Carmichael, BBH senior vice president of investor services. Central Trust of China was the previous custodian, and International Investment Trust was the $105 million closed end fund's prior accountant and administrator, according to the fund's latest report, issued in June. The fund invests in Taiwan equities.

MIDDLESBROUGH, England — Teesside Pension Fund rehired Northern Trust as global custodian of the £1.3 billion ($2.32 billion) plan, said Fred Green, director of investments.

Trustees of the internally managed fund selected the custodian from a shortlist that also included HSBC Bank's Global Investor Services, ABN AMRO Mellon and State Street Corp.

Northern Trust, which the fund first hired in 2001, signed a new three-year contract with an option to extend for a fourth year.

BOISE, Idaho — Terteling Co. added five investment options to its $40 million 401(k) plan, said Flinda Terteling, vice president. They are: Scudder Dreman High Return Equity; T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Value; Thornburg International Value; PIMCO NFJ Small Cap Value; and Oppenheimer Capital Appreciation funds. The plan dropped the MFS Massachusetts Investors Growth Stock, INVESCO Dynamics and Janus Adviser Worldwide funds because they were not meeting performance criteria set by the plan's investment committee, said Ms. Terteling.

John Reilly, MFS spokesman, declined to comment. Bill Hensel, spokesman for INVESCO parent AMVESCAP, did not return a call seeking comment by press time. Shelley Peterson, spokeswoman for Janus, said, "We absolutely hate to lose any client" and will work hard to win back the business.

The Oppenheimer fund replaced the MFS fund; assets from the Janus fund were rolled into the Thornburg fund; and assets in the INVESCO fund were rolled over to the Franklin Small-Mid Cap Growth fund, an existing investment option.

The plan now offers 14 investment options, up from 12.