At Deadline

Officials of the $220.1 billion CalPERS, the $148.8 billion CalSTRS and the $96 billion New York City Retirement Systems announced a joint partnership with the New America Alliance to increase the use of emerging managers among U.S. pension funds.

CalPERS CEO Fred Buenrostro, CalSTRS CIO Christopher Ailman and New York City Comptroller William Thompson Jr. said the three systems will work with the alliance, a non-profit organization representing the Latino business and financial community, to educate U.S. pension plans, endowment and foundations about emerging and minority money managers. "Other pension funds look to us for leadership," said Mr. Buenrostro.

As part of the partnership, CalPERS committed $400 million to Centinela Capital Partners, a new private equity emerging manager fund of funds.

Boeing, DaimlerChrysler and Avon Products contributed new money to their pension funds, government filings show.

Boeing contributed $513 million during the first nine months of the year, the company reported in an 8-K filing Oct. 25. No further contributions are expected this year, but company officials expect to contribute $500 million in 2007, according to the filing.

The company had $43.5 billion in defined benefit pension assets and $45.183 billion in benefit obligations as of Sept. 30, 2005.

DaimlerChrysler contributed about $606 million during the third quarter and $22 million on Oct 2, filings show. DaimlerChrysler had $20 billion in U.S. defined benefit assets as of Sept. 30, 2005, according to Pensions & Investments data.

Avon contributed $56 million to its domestic pension plan and $34 million to its international plans, according to a quarterly report filed with the SEC. The company plans to contribute another $3 million to the domestic plan and $10 million to the international pension plans before Dec. 31. Avon executives also are considering strategies to increase the funded status of the international plans and could contribute an additional $55 million before the end of the year, the filing said. Avon has $1.28 billion in pension assets, according to Money Market Directory.

CalSTRS picked five managers to run core-plus fixed income and two to run high-yield bonds as part of a restructuring of the fund's $33 billion bond portfolio.

Under the restructuring, the $148.8 billion pension fund is allocating about 15% of its portfolio to core-plus, a new category, while reducing its internally managed core bond portfolio to 80% of fixed-income assets from 95%. High-yield bonds will remain at 5% of fixed-income assets.

CalSTRS picked Western Asset, LM Capital, Fidelity Management Trust, Aberdeen Asset and Julius Baer to run a total of $5 billion in core plus. Breakouts were not available.

The fund also selected BlackRock and Goldman Sachs Asset Management to run high-yield bond portfolios of undisclosed size. Last year, CalSTRS had reduced high-yield bond portfolios run by Capital Guardian Trust and Hartford Investment Management of $393 million and $470 million, respectively, to negligible amounts. CIO Christopher Ailman explained that CalSTRS no longer terminates managers, but shrinks their portfolios to keep their contracts active.

CalSTRS' other high-yield managers are Seix, Post Advisory and Shenkman Capital.

CalSTRS also created pre-approved lists of backup core-plus and high-yield bond managers to draw from in case fund officials need to find substitutes or add new managers. For core-plus, CalSTRS picked TCW, PIMCO, Delaware Investments, Lehman Brothers, Brown Brothers Harriman and Putnam Investments. For high yield, the fund selected Nomura Corporate Research and Asset Management, Wells Capital, Metropolitan West Asset, E.H. Williams and Lehman Brothers.

The Government Accountability Office will review the SEC's oversight of self-regulatory organizations such as the NASD and the operations of the SEC's Division of Enforcement and Office of Compliance, Inspection, and Examination, according to a GAO letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The review is in response to Mr. Grassley's request that the agency examine the SEC to ensure self-regulatory organizations are enforcing member compliance with federal securities laws. Among the SEC practices Mr. Grassley wanted investigated was "enforcement of division-wide measures for assessing and evaluating performance of division personnel."

Tredegar Corp. will freeze its $182 million defined benefit plan to new employees as of Jan. 1 and to all employees as of Dec. 31, 2007, according to a news release. Employees will be able to participate in an enhanced 401(k) plan with a full match up to 6% of base pay for 2007 and 2008 and up to 5% of base pay for 2009 and onward. The company matches 50% of employee contributions up to 10% of base pay.

Company officials expect the changes to reduce the firm's projected benefit obligation by about $10 million as of Dec. 31.

Affiliated Managers Group will acquire a roughly 60% stake in Chicago Equity Partners, a quantitative equity manager with $11.4 billion in institutional assets under management. The remaining 40% will be held by nine key CEP professionals, including the firm's five founders, all of whom have signed long-term employment agreements, according to an AMG news release. Details of the transaction weren't released. The deal will enable "our management team to retain significant equity ownership, while also providing the next generation of our leaders with meaningful equity stakes," CEP President Patrick C. Lynch said in the release. Putnam Lovell NBF Securities represented Chicago Equity Partners.

The $5.9 billion Wyoming Retirement System hired AllianceBernstein to run $130 million in active domestic midcap value equities and Sasco Capital to run $100 million in active domestic smidcap value equities, confirmed Harry Wales, deputy director. Both allocations were added for diversification. Funding will likely come from a general redistribution, and no managers will be terminated, he said.

Buck Consultants assisted.