Alaska Retirement Management Board, Juneau, hired Western Asset Management Co. and Guggenheim Partners to run about $100 million each in taxable municipal bonds, said Gary Bader, chief investment officer of the $22 billion pension fund.
“We’re trying to get additional exposure to the (Barclays Aggregate) index,” Mr. Bader said. “It’s not as exotic as infrastructure; we look at it as part of our overall fixed-income portfolio.”
The investments are the pension fund’s first in taxable municipal fixed income.
Funding came from the fund’s 24% fixed-income allocation; no managers were terminated. Mr. Bader said most of the fixed-income portfolio is internally managed, but the pension fund wanted external managers to run this allocation.
Callan Associates is the board’s investment consultant.
