Michigan Municipal Employees' Retirement System, Lansing, is considering investing between 2% and 5% of its $5.6 billion in defined benefit assets in infrastructure funds. Jeb Burns, CIO of the system, said staff is actively researching the investment area and will likely make an investment in the spring if a decision is made to go forward on the asset class. Funding would likely come from reducing the plan's fixed-income allocation, which totaled 25% of plan assets as of Sept. 30, Mr. Burns said.
Separately, the plan closed a $250 million convertible bond portfolio managed for the last 20 years by TCW Group. Fund officials made a strategic decision in 2006 to eliminate convertibles as a separate asset class. The assets have been redistributed evenly among the plan's other asset classes and managers, Mr. Burns said.
Last week, fund officials also moved $115 million from a domestic REIT portfolio into a new global real estate strategy, both run by Urdang & Associates Real Estate Advisors.
