Employees Retirement System of Texas plans to invest up to $600 million in eight to 12 new hedge fund allocations before the end of its fiscal year on Aug. 31, confirmed Mary Jo Wardlow, an ERS spokeswoman.
The $23.2 billion system has a 5% target hedge fund allocation, or about $1.2 billion in current dollars. By the end of 2012 — the first year of hedge fund investing — the system had invested $300 million, or 1.4%, in six hedge fund managers.
Investment staffers at the Austin-based system are “on target,” Ms. Wardlow said in an e-mail, to invest an additional $400 million to $600 million by the end of the fiscal year to reach the system's interim hedge fund target of 3.7% of assets or about $860 million in current dollars.
According to the system's latest hedge fund market summary, ERS' hedge fund team is completing “late-phase due diligence with a number of equity long/short and equity market-neutral managers.” Ms. Wardlow confirmed that some managers have been hired, but said she could not identify them until May 21, when ERS's board next meets.
Ms. Wardlow said an RFP process is not being used for the hires, and interested parties should apply through the fund's website at http://www.ers.state.tx.us/About_ERS/Investments/External_Advisors/.
