Erie County (Pa.) Employees' Retirement System recommended hiring Boyd Watterson Asset Management and PNC Bank to run a total of about $11 million in active domestic intermediate-duration fixed income, confirmed Mary Schaaf, county controller.
Boyd Watterson would run about $8 million; PNC would run about $3 million.
The $202 million pension fund also recommended an investment of about $11 million in the Seix Floating Rate High Income mutual fund, a bank loan fund managed by Seix Advisors.
Funding comes from the termination of C.S. McKee from an active domestic core fixed-income portfolio and Emerald Advisers from an active domestic intermediate-duration fixed-income portfolio, each about $8 million. The pension fund also withdrew $6 million from its investment in the Seix High Yield mutual fund, leaving it with $8.5 million.
A vote on the recommendations will come at a special board of trustees meeting later this month.
Ms. Schaaf said in a telephone interview that the expected changes were due to pension fund officials wishing to shorten the duration of the fixed-income investments and go into bank loans for the first time to take advantage of its floating-rate component in the current low-interest-rate environment.
Investment consultant Morrison Fiduciary Advisors assisted.
