NEWS BRIEFS: Russell 3000 falls 6.1%

The Russell 3000 index was down 6.1% in January, its worst decline since September 2002, according to a news release from Russell. Only 30% of stocks in the index posted a positive return for the month, while growth stocks in particular underperformed. “The technology sector in the Russell 3000 declined 12.3% for the month,” Steve Wood, senior portfolio strategist, said in the release. “By contrast, the financial services sector, which is dominated by value stocks, dipped only 0.8%.”

The large-cap Russell 1000 Growth index fell 7.8%, while the Russell 1000 Value index had a 4% decline. The Russell Global index declined 8.3%. That index includes the Russell Developed index, which was down 7.6%, and the Russell Emerging Markets index, which was down 12.8%.

NEW YORK — New York state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson and the New York City pension funds on Jan. 25 expanded the consolidated class-action lawsuit filed against Countrywide Financial Corp. to include 26 brokerage firms and two accounting firms, said James Fuchs, a spokesman for the comptroller.

In early December, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California appointed Mr. DiNapoli and the New York City pension funds as co-lead plaintiffs in a federal securities fraud class action against mortgage lender Countrywide, Calabasas, Calif. The expanded suit now includes 26 firms that underwrote Countrywide stock and bond offerings, two global accounting firms as well as additional Countrywide officers and directors who signed SEC filings “that contained false and misleading information about Countrywide’s business and finances,” Mr. Fuchs said.

“The funds, which are co-lead defendants in the case, decided to expand the class-action suit following consultation with our outside counsel, Labaton Sucharow LLP,” Mr. Fuchs said. “You saw a situation where Countrywide executives were cashing in on their stock and shortly after we heard bad news about the company.”

Mr. DiNapoli is sole trustee of the $154.5 billion New York State Common Retirement Fund, Albany. The five New York City funds, with a combined $110 billion in assets, are: the Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System, Fire Department Pension Fund, Police Pension Fund and the Board of Education Retirement System.

The following are named in the expanded suit: ABN AMRO; A.G. Edwards & Sons; Banc of America Securities; Barclays Capital; BNP Paribas Securities Corp.; BNY Capital Markets; Citigroup Global Markets; Countrywide Securities Corp.; Deutsche Bank Securities; Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein Securities; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Greenwich Capital Markets; HSBC Securities; J.P. Morgan Securities; Lehman Brothers; Merrill Lynch Pierce Morgan Stanley; Morgan Stanley; RBC Capital Markets; RBC Dominion Securities; RBC Dain Rauscher; Scotia Capital; SG Americas Securities; TD Securities; UBS Securities; Wachovia Capital Markets; Wachovia Securities; and insurers Grant Thornton and KPMG.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System terminated Western Asset Management, which ran $1 billion in U.S. enhanced index equities. Stan Rupnik, chief investment officer of the $42 billion plan, said in an interview that performance and high tracking error had been concerns for some time. WAMCO's management of a $478 million global inflation-linked bond portfolio for the system is unaffected, said Eva Goltermann, TRS public information officer.

Pacific Investment Management Co., which managed $3.3 billion in other strategies for the system as of Sept. 30, will assume management of the account for an interim period. Mr. Rupnik said staff likely will make a recommendation to trustees about a permanent replacement in May. Mary Athridge, a WAMCO spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Updated with correction

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 22 denied a request by University of California regents to overturn an appeals court decision that prevented Enron Corp. investors from pursuing a class-action suit against banks and securities firms for their alleged role in the accounting fraud that led to Enron’s collapse. The university’s $57 billion pension fund lost more than $144 million in the Enron collapse. The suit was seeking restitution from firms that included Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Pershing and Barclays. The high court turned down the university’s appeal without comment.

Trey Davis, university spokesman, said the Supreme Court’s action “does not end the Enron litigation. The 5th Circuit ordered that the case be sent back to the District Court in Houston for further appropriate proceedings. We will be evaluating alternatives and will present them to the District Court promptly.”

ATLANTA — United Parcel Service Inc., Atlanta, blamed a $6.1 billion payment to withdraw from the Teamsters Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund for a $2.576 billion net loss for the company in the quarter ended Dec. 31. The company had $1.128 billion in net income in the same period a year earlier, according to a UPS financial report released Jan. 30. For the previous quarter, UPS reported net income of $1.076 billion. The after-tax impact of the pension withdrawal charge totaled $3.772 billion, the financial report said.

UPS’ total operating profit, excluding the pre-tax withdrawal payment, was $1.847 billion for the fourth quarter, up from $1.809 billion in the same period a year earlier, the report said.

The Central States pension fund, Rosemont, Ill., had $21.3 billion in assets as of Sept. 30. UPS made the $6.1 billion payment in December.

FORT SMITH, Ark. — Arkansas Best Corp. proposed to withdraw from the Teamsters Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund and 26 other multiemployer pension funds and pay an estimated $800 million to $850 million in withdrawal liabilities.

The proposal is a key element of the company’s current negotiations with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters on a new contract with Arkansas Best unit ABF Freight System Inc., said David Humphrey, director of investor relations at Arkansas Best.

The Central States fund, Rosemont, Ill., has $21.3 billion in assets. The company also proposed withdrawals from $32.6 billion Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund, Seattle, and the $3.6 billion New England Teamsters and Trucking Industry Pension Fund, Burlington, Mass., among others.

“Our expressed interest is to withdraw from all 27 multiemployer plans if we can,” Mr. Humphrey said.

Arkansas Best’s withdrawal liability rose to the estimated $800 million level in the past year from $600 million to $650 million because of the withdrawal “by a large contributing employer” from Central States, the company’s SEC filing stated. United Parcel Service Inc., Atlanta, withdrew from Central States last year, paying $6.1 billion.

Because of the sensitivity of the contract negotiations, Mr. Humphrey declined to comment on the type of replacement plan Arkansas Best would propose. Its contract with the Teamsters expires March 31.

Mark F. Angerame, CFO at Central States, couldn’t be reached for comment. Galen Munroe, Teamster spokesman, declined to comment on the negotiations.

DANBURY, Conn. — Robert Adam Wysocki, founder and retired managing partner of executive recruiter Cornell Global, died of cancer Jan. 23. He was 62. Mr. Wysocki directed executive searches for investment managers and hedge funds, according to Cornell Global’s website. Prior to founding Cornell Global, Mr. Wysocki worked at NYNEX Corp. and sister companies; he was head of NYNEX Investment Management, which managed the company’s pension fund, from 1979-1987. Mr. Wysocki was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and was an academy trustee. He also served as a civilian aide to the secretary of the army in recent years.

“Bob was a very special person who touched the lives of many people. He battled cancer for three or four years very courageously,” said John F. Weidner, a partner and co-founder with Mr. Wysocki of Cornell Global.

Memorials may be made to Praxair Cancer Center, Danbury Hospital, 24 Hospital Ave, Danbury, CT 06810.

NEW YORK — Morgan Stanley’s plans to lay off 1,000 employees — about 2% of its staff — will have limited impact on its investment management and wealth units, spokesman James Wiggins said today. “This will involve headcount reductions in some areas and additions in others,” Mr. Wiggins said of the planned staff reorganization decided after the second-largest U.S. brokerage firm wrote down $9.4 billion in subprime and mortgage exposure in the fourth quarter, when it suffered a $3.5 billion loss. “We’ll continue to grow in wealth management and investment management. The impact (of the layoffs) will be very minimal” in those businesses, he said.

Morgan Stanley’s asset management division experienced a record year in 2007, with $597 billion in assets under management, up $101 billion from 2006, and record net inflows of $35 billion. The global wealth management unit reported pre-tax profits of $1.2 billion in 2007. Mr. Wiggins said the firm “is engaged in an ongoing process of assessing its personnel needs in light of overall market conditions, business priorities and individual performance.”

MINNEAPOLIS — Leuthold Group raised its equity exposure to 50% on Jan. 22, after raising the exposure to 38% on Jan. 18 from 30%, according to a memorandum to clients from the investment research and strategy firm. The firm raised the exposure in its core and asset allocation portfolios, reducing its equity hedges.

Considering “the selling pressures which developed in overseas markets at the beginning of the week, we elected to further increase net equity exposure,” Andy Engel, senior research analyst, wrote in the memo. “This does not mean that the market will necessarily rally from here, but we believe the downside risk is not nearly as great as it had been prior to the recent sell-off,” Mr. Engel wrote in the memo, noting “downside stock market risk is significantly less with valuations near median (historical) levels.”

The portfolios now have 25% in cash equivalents, the memo said. “So despite the increased equity exposure, these portfolios remain in a relatively defensive posture and well below the normal guideline maximum of 70% net equity exposure,” Mr. Engel wrote.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Municipal Retirement System’s unfunded liability jumped nearly 59%, to $2.9 billion, last year because of changes in its cost method, amortization period and other actuarial assumptions, said Bill Wallace, spokesman for the $14.5 billion system. Those figures could change when the 2007 actuarial valuation is ready in April. The changes, recommended by system actuary Segal Co., will force the 823 TMRS member cities to raise their contribution levels or adjust benefits. “We’ll see a wide variety of responses to this,” Mr. Wallace said. The primary impetus for the shift was an adoption by many cities of automatic renewal of cost-of-living increases; the new accounting methods would pre-fund those increased costs.

NEW YORK — The Morgan Stanley Global Long/Short Fund, a new hedge fund of funds, opened to outside investors. The fund is managed by Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, a unit of Morgan Stanley Investment Management that runs about $900 million in two existing hedge funds of funds. The global long/short fund will be invested with 20 to 25 long/short equity hedge fund managers and is targeted to smaller institutional and high-net-worth investors, according to a news release. The fund “offers investors the potential to capture the upside return of global equity markets while helping to reduce downside risk,” Mustafa Jama, CIO of Morgan Stanley AIP’s hedge fund-of-funds team, said in the release.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The $191 million Luzerne County Retirement Board voted to allow the pension plan to invest in hedge funds. According to a board spokeswoman, the vote changes the board’s investment policy but does not mean a search for hedge fund managers is imminent; it was changed “just in case something happens down the road,” she said. Further questions were referred to the board’s investment consultant, Peter Butera at Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., who did not return a call seeking further information.

CHICAGO — Northern Trust is now offering customized benchmarks to its pension fund custody clients that help gauge their LDI program investments more accurately. The new liability-driven investment benchmarks reflect each client’s own cash flow profile, obtained from the client or the client’s actuary, according to a news release.

NEW YORK — Panagos Katz Situational Investing, a distressed investing firm, is being formed by Kohlberg Capital, KKR’s publicly traded business development company, with Steven Panagos, former national practice leader and managing director at Kroll Zolfo Cooper’s corporate advisory and restructuring practice, and Jonathan Katz, founding partner of special situations investing at JPMorgan. Kohlberg Capital will own a minority interest in the new firm.

Deutsche Bank acquired hedge fund administrator HedgeWorks. Ted Meyer, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, said terms were not disclosed. “HedgeWorks is a strong fit with our business. It complements our core strengths of providing high-quality third-party administrative services to the financial community and the acquisition enables us to further strengthen our service offering to the hedge fund industry,” F. Jim Della Sala, head of structured financial services, said in a news release. Jefferies Putnam Lovell advised HedgeWorks on the deal. Mr. Meyer said Deutsche Bank’s own investment bankers advised executives of the trust and securities services unit on the acquisition.

The State Street Private Equity index was 15.03% on Sept. 30, down slightly from 15.29% on June 30, according to data released Jan. 31 by State Street Corp. Buyouts returned 15.7% in the third quarter, down from 15.79% in the prior quarter, and venture capital returned 12.42%, down from 13.23%.

Missouri Public School Retirement System, Jefferson City, returned 1.6% on investments in the six-month period ended Dec. 31, according to a statement from CIO Craig Husting on the $32.2 billion system’s website. Mr. Husting said returns “could decline further” and have dropped about 5% since the beginning of the year.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System plans to terminate one U.S. large-cap growth and one small-cap value manager to fund new managers running the same equity styles, said Jeffrey States, chief investment officer at the $6.3 billion pension fund. He wouldn’t name the firms but said searches were spurred by poor performance.

The fund’s large-growth managers are Independence Investments, which runs $148.6 million, and INTECH, $141 million. Its small-cap value managers are Dalton Greiner and TCW Group.

For the year ended Sept. 30, Independence returned 15.7% net of fees; INTECH, 15.9% net, while the benchmark Russell 1000 Growth returned 19.4%, according to data on the fund’s website. During the same period, Dalton returned 17.5% net of fees; TCW, 6.2% net; and the benchmark Russell 2000 Value, 6.1%.

No RFP was issued; fund officials are evaluating managers recommended by Mercer, said Mr. States. The pension fund will choose the new managers by Feb. 14, he said.

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund postponed manager searches for $175 million in international real estate and $170 million in hedge funds of funds, said Molly E. Deuberry, communications manager for the $8.9 billion fund.

The six-member board has three new trustees who want to study the strategic asset allocation before considering whether to move ahead with the searches, she said. Another new trustee is expected to be appointed soon by Gov. Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.

Funding would come from domestic and international equities and fixed income. No timetable has been set for deciding on the searches, she added. Callan Associates is assisting.

DENVER — Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association, Denver, created an “opportunity fund” to hold up to 3% of the system’s $43.3 billion in assets for future investment strategies that don’t “fit neatly” into existing asset classes, said spokeswoman Katie Kaufmanis. New investment strategies could include 130/30 or commodities, but that has not been determined. Ms. Kaufmanis said the association’s investment committee might begin discussing new strategies at its March meeting. Funding would come from moving an existing 1% timber allocation into the new fund and cutting domestic equity; details of the equity reduction have not been determined. Ennis Knupp is consultant.

HARTFORD, Conn. — The sale of $2 billion in pension obligation bonds to reduce the $10.2 billion Connecticut State Teachers’ Retirement System’s $6.9 billion unfunded liability was approved Jan. 25 by the Connecticut State Bond Commission. Gov. Jodi Rell signed legislation in July authorizing the sale. In a statement, state Treasurer Denise L. Nappier, a member of the commission, applauded the timing of the sale. “With interest rates at historic lows, we expect that the cost of borrowing will be relatively low — somewhere between 5.25(%) and 5.6%, a rate far lower than the 8.5% currently being paid on the unfunded liability,” she said.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Five public pension funds in California, including the $246 billion California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Sacramento, and the $11.1 billion Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System, are preparing to submit a friend-of-the-court brief to the California Supreme Court, which is considering a case that could make public pension board members criminally liable for failing to exercise their fiduciary duties. The pension funds oppose any ruling that would make pension board members criminally liable for any contracts they approved, according to a memo to the LACERS board dated Jan. 9.

In 2005, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre charged six former board members of the $4.8 billion San Diego City Employees’ Retirement System with violating their fiduciary responsibilities and in some cases, engaging in felony conflict of interest by allegedly allowing the city to underpay its contribution to the pension plan. On Nov. 28, the state Supreme Court granted a hearing in the case, Lexin vs. Superior Court. According to the memo to the LACERS board, the amicus briefs could be filed as early as mid-April. A hearing before the California Supreme Court could occur sometime during the summer, according to the memo by Alan L. Manning, Los Angeles assistant city attorney.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Public Employees’ Retirement System filed a lawsuit against home loan mortgage corporation Freddie Mac, alleging the company hid billions in subprime mortgage lending losses. The suit claims Freddie Mac artificially inflated the value of its common stock by making false public financial statements that obscured the amount of exposure the company had to the subprime mortgage industry, according to a news release. OPERS claims its losses as a result of Freddie Mac’s cover-up of subprime exposure could be as high as $27.2 million, according to a news release from Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann. The lawsuit was filed by Mr. Dann, on behalf of OPERS, in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Shawn Flaherty, a spokeswoman for Freddie Mac, did not return calls seeking comment by deadline.

CHICAGO — The median foundation and endowment returned -0.2% for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with -0.6% for corporate pension plans and -0.7% for public plans, according to data in the Northern Trust universe of institutional investment plans. Median returns for the year ended Dec. 31 were 9.4% for foundations and endowments, 8.4% for corporate and 8.5% for public plans.

“Top-returning plans benefited from their allocations to international equities, specifically emerging markets, as well as private equity,” Joe Nardulli, product manager at Northern Trust Investment Risk & Analytical Services, said in a news release.

The Northern Trust universe comprises 300 institutional investment plans worth a combined $700 billion.

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — AK Steel Holding Corp.’s board of directors authorized an early $75 million contribution to the company’s pension trust fund, according to a release on the firm’s website. The payment is expected to meet about half of the company’s 2008 funding obligation. AK Steel, West Chester, Ohio, has roughly $3.1 billion in retirement assets, including $2.7 billion in defined benefit assets.

BOSTON — SSgA launched a core equity 130/30 mutual fund. While the Boston-based firm managed $12.8 billion of client money in 130/30 strategies as of Dec. 31, the core equity fund is SSgA’s first 130/30 offering for U.S. retail investors, said spokeswoman Marie McGehee.

PITTSBURGH — WisdomTree Investments and Dreyfus will jointly develop and distribute international cash and fixed-income ETFs, said Jonathan Steinberg, WisdomTree CEO. The new ETF products will be co-branded and marketed by both organizations. While the $3 trillion in money market funds in the U.S. today are almost entirely in domestic cash products, officials at WisdomTree and Dreyfus, a unit of BNY Mellon, expect a growing number of investors, including corporate treasurers and CFOs, will be looking to diversify into non-U.S. cash products, Mr. Steinberg said.

OAK BROOK, Ill. — Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund reported a preliminary return of 8.6% for 2007, said Louis W. Kosiba, executive director. That outpaced the $24.2 billion fund’s target actuarial assumed rate of return of 7.5%, he said. The top performer among the fund’s asset classes was alternative investments — private equity, absolute return, agriculture and timber — which returned 19.9% and outperformed the customized benchmark return of 12%, Mr. Kosiba said. Second was international equity, 14.87%, which underperformed the 16.65% return of its benchmark, the MSCI ACWI ex-U.S..

Separately, board member James W. Rasins was named chairman of the fund’s investment committee. He replaced Max F. Bochmann, who is president of the fund’s board.

JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska Permanent Fund lost 0.5% in the fourth quarter of 2007, bringing the value of the fund to $38.9 billion, according to Laura Achee, director of communications. For calendar year 2007, the fund returned 8.81%.

Returns for the most recent quarter were dragged down by the U.S. equity portfolio, which returned -3.1%, and the global stock portfolio, which returned -2.1%. The international equity portfolio returned 0.4%. The U.S. fixed-income portfolio returned 2.6% for the quarter, while the non-U.S. bond portfolio returned 2.7%. The real estate portfolio returned -1.7% for the quarter while absolute return investments were up 1.8%.

DES MOINES, Iowa — Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System underperformed its custom benchmark and its TUCS universe for the year ended June 30, according to the $23.7 billion fund’s comprehensive annual report.

Iowa PERS reported a 16.29% return; the benchmark returned 16.61%. Public pension funds with more than $1 billion returned 17.69%, according to data from the Trust Universe Comparison Service, the report said. In the report, Iowa PERS officials said the fund’s underperformance resulted from “a significantly higher allocation to bonds and lower allocation to stocks” than the fund’s peers, while “bonds earned substantially less than stocks.” They also said several active equity managers “performed poorly.”

The pension fund had 33% in fixed income and 46% total in domestic and international equities as of June 30.

For the five and 10 years ended June 30, the fund returned 11.64% and 9.03% vs. 11.54% and 8.41% for its custom benchmarks and the TUCS medians of 11.47% and 8.19%, the report said.

BILLERICA, Mass. — Middlesex County Retirement System transferred $32.5 million to SSgA’s Governmental Short Term Investment Fund from SSgA’s Short Term Investment Fund, confirmed Tom Gibson, board chairman. The $800 million fund no longer has money in the short-term fund. The system’s board was concerned about exposure to the subprime mortgage sector, Mr. Gibson said. No consultant was used.

WASHINGTON — The American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries asked the IRS on Jan. 28 to give underfunded defined benefit plans a clean funding-status slate if they resolve to wipe out the deficit through additional contributions. Under proposed regulations to implement benefit-restriction limitations included in the Pension Protection Act of 2006, the IRS would continue benefit restrictions on an underfunded plan into the first part of the following year even if the employer made special contributions to avoid the restrictions in the current year. The restrictions include barring increased benefits for plan participants.

At the Jan. 28 hearing, Judy A. Miller, chief of actuarial issues and director of retirement policy at ASPPA, urged IRS officials to cut plans a little slack. “What we want them to do is to include those contributions in determining the funded percentage that will be presumed to apply in the following year until the actual certification is done for that following year,” Ms. Miller said in an interview.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — A paper by Wilshire Index Research, a unit of Wilshire Analytics, backs the use of a typical long-only index to benchmark 130/30 strategies. “130/30 managers are competing directly against active and passive long-only managers, so each manager should use the same benchmark,” according to the paper, written by Robert Waid, Wilshire vice president and principal.

Some investors have called for an index with shorting to be used as a benchmark to measure the performance of 130/30 strategies. Credit Suisse and Standard & Poor’s have created indexes that rank stocks and short the lowest ranking stocks. Also, a paper by Andrew Lo, finance professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, supported the idea of using an index that shorts stocks as a proper benchmark for 130/30 strategies.

The Wilshire paper rebuts that idea, saying, “a short-extension investment strategy competes for the same investment assets as a long-only strategy and thus requires the same long-only benchmark to measure manager skill.”

Wilshire Analytics is a division of Wilshire Associates. The parent organization partners with Dow Jones to create the Dow Jones Wilshire indexes. That index series does not include a shorting index.

ORINDA, Calif. — Investment professionals surveyed by AXA Rosenberg predict weakening corporate earnings in the U.S., U.K. and Japan over the next 12 months, although Asia ex-Japan and Australia are expected to see higher corporate earnings.

A survey of 196 investment professionals at AXA Rosenberg client conferences in New York, London, Tokyo and Melbourne last fall found that all respondents said Asia ex-Japan would have the strongest growth in corporate earnings. Respondents in the U.K., Japan and Australia said the U.S. would have the weakest growth in corporate earnings.

Respondents in all regions saw inflation increasing in the next 12 months

“If predictions for a challenging economic environment and continued heightened volatility come to pass, investors who refocus their attention on stocks with sound fundamentals and portfolio risk control are likely to be rewarded,” Stephane Prunet, AXA Rosenberg global CEO, said in a news release. “We also expect that growing interest in innovative equity products that help navigate this volatility will continue well beyond 2008.”

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Paradigm Asset Management launched an active quantitative small-cap core strategy that includes a database from proprietary sources to add fundamental insights into individual companies, said James Francis, president and CEO. The strategy invests in 150 to 200 securities. That high number of securities will allow for larger capacity — $5 billion in assets vs. about $1 billion for the typical small-cap strategy. It will close at about $3.5 billion, leaving the rest of the growth for existing clients. Seed money of $10 million came from a large state fund and a large municipal fund Mr. Francis wouldn’t identify.

NEW YORK — MSCI Barra introduced the first four indexes in a new thematic and strategy family: MSCI Infrastructure, MSCI Equal Weighted, MSCI Short and MSCI Leveraged, confirmed spokeswoman Ann Taylor Reed. The infrastructure and equal-weighted indexes were released Tuesday, while the short and leveraged indexes will be available at the end of May. The short and leveraged indexes apply Barra’s quantitative risk models with MSCI indexes and are precursors for indexes following more complex investment strategies, such as 130/30 and hedge fund replication, Ted Niggli, executive director, said in an interview.

MILWAUKEE — City of Milwaukee Employes’ Retirement System hired Global Trading Analytics to provide transaction measurement services, pending successful contract negotiations, said Tom Rick, CIO of the $5.3 billion fund. GTA will measure and evaluate trading performance of the system’s domestic and international equity managers as well as fixed-income managers, he said. It’s the first time the system has used such a service; it was recommended in a 2006 fiduciary audit by Independent Fiduciary Services, Mr. Rick said.