Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Trust, Boston, Tuesday approved the hiring of the $48 billion fund’s first 11 direct hedge fund managers.
The Pension Reserves Investment Management board allocated $25 million apiece to Anchorage Capital Group and Claren Road Asset Management, both credit/distressed managers; Arrowgrass Capital Partners and Och-Ziff Capital Management, both multistrategy managers; BlueCrest Capital Management and Brevan Howard Asset Management, both global macro managers; and Elliott Management, Taconic Capital Advisors and York Capital Management; all event-driven managers.
The fund also hired two equity long/short managers — Kingdon Capital Management, which received $25 million; and Viking Global Investors, which received $30 million.
Following the initial $280 million allocation to this “strong group of differentiated managers,” an additional 10 managers will be named at the board’s next meeting in two months, and together they’ll form the foundation of a direct hedge fund program that can absorb roughly $1.5 billion by April, said Hannah Gilligan Commoss, deputy chief investment officer, public markets, for the board.
That hiring schedule had been announced earlier this year when the board approved an initial $500 million direct hedge fund program, to be funded by trimming PRIM’s $4 billion in allocations to five hedge fund-of-funds firms.