Merced County (Calif.) Employees' Retirement Association is conducting shortlist searches for domestic and international small-cap equity managers, confirmed Maria Arevalo, plan administrator.
Interested managers may contact Strategic Investment Solutions, the $565 million pension fund's investment consultant, Ms. Arevalo said in a telephone interview.
The asset sizes for the allocations have not been determined because SIS is currently conducting an asset allocation study.
The international small-cap equity search is to replace UBS Global Asset Management, which runs about $20 million in the strategy. Ms. Arevalo said a search was approved because of personnel changes at UBS. A hiring decision could be made by the end of July.
WHV Investment Management already manages a domestic small-cap allocation, and the pension fund wants to add a second manager, according to the pension fund's website.
Separately, the board approved eliminating the domestic midcap equity allocation. Mellon Capital Management ran about $25 million in the strategy; the assets were moved to existing allocations to Mellon Capital large-cap growth and value equity indexes and its Tangent-Added strategy, an asset allocation strategy that seeks to outperform the S&P 500.
