Iowa Municipal Fire and Police Retirement System, West Des Moines, hired Harvest Fund Advisors and Tortoise Capital Advisors to manage $50 million each in publicly traded master limited partnerships, said Terry Slattery, executive director.
In addition, the $1.9 billion pension fund committed $60 million to a Neuberger Berman fund focused on investing in secondary offerings of private equity limited partnerships.
The hiring is contingent on adoption of a fiduciary standard agreement, Mr. Slattery said. Otherwise the pension fund would reallocate the commitment to a HarbourVest secondary fund.
Funding for the MLPs, whose focus is mainly in energy-related pipelines, will come in part from the withdrawal of all the pension fund's $20 million allocation with J.P. Morgan Special Situations Property Fund, managed by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Mr. Slattery said. The pension fund is withdrawing from the J.P. Morgan fund because it wants to move its current overweight 12% allocation to real estate closer to its 10% target allocation; and it selected the fund because it is an open-end fund, enabling liquidity, Mr. Slattery said.
The other $80 million in MLP funding will come from a prorated reduction of allocations across the pension fund's equity managers, Mr. Slattery said.
Summit Strategies Group, the pension fund's investment consultant, assisted in the shortlist searches.
