Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, Baltimore, is seeking to hire additional credit and debt-strategies managers, said Mansco Perry III, the $33.7 billion fund's chief investment officer.
“I anticipate that many of these (new managers) will be private credit funds,” Mr. Perry said in an interview. Mr. Perry said no RFPs will be issued and that there is no particular timeline for the search or a particular number of managers the system is seeking.
“We try to be opportunistic and selective but try to be realistic and recognize that we cannot evaluate every opportunity in the market,” he said.
The additional managers will run a total of 5% of the system's assets; the system's board Tuesday approved raising the policy target for its credit/debt strategies portfolio to 10% from 5%.
“That's primarily because we believe that over the next three or four years that there could be a lot of opportunities, primarily in the distressed debt, mezzanine debt and other debt-related strategies,” Mr. Perry said.
Funding for the increase will come from reducing the system's private equity target to 10% from 12%, and its absolute-return target to 7% from 10%. Mr. Perry said no manager terminations or portfolio reductions are involved.
