Texas Municipal Retirement System, Austin, is conducting a shortlist search for at least one hedge fund-of-funds manager, confirmed spokesman Bill Wallace.
It will be the $21.2 billion pension fund's first hedge fund investment. It has a 5% target allocation to the asset class, but Mr. Wallace said the size of the allocation for the search has not been determined.
R.V. Kuhns & Associates is conducting the search, and interested managers may contact the investment consultant.
Separately, the pension fund hired five managers to run a combined $1.15 billion and committed $250 million to four real estate managers.
The pension fund hired Credit Suisse Asset Management, Highland Capital Management and Guggenheim Investments to run $250 million each in bank loans/collateralized loan obligations. It also hired Epoch Investment Partners and Sasco Capital to run $200 million each in active domestic all-cap equity strategies.
R.V. Kuhns conducted both shortlist searches. Funding for the equity hires comes from passive equity portfolios; core bond portfolios will fund the non-core fixed-income hires. No managers were terminated, Mr. Wallace said.
Also, the pension fund committed $75 million each to Stockbridge Value Fund II and Greenfield Acquisition Partners VII, value-added real estate funds managed by Stockbridge Capital Group and Greenfield Partners, respectively. It also committed an additional $50 million each to Stockbridge Smart Markets Fund, a core real estate fund, and Harrison Street Securities, a REIT subsidiary of real estate investment management firm Harrison Street Real Estate Capital. The pension fund originally committed $50 million to the Smart Markets Fund and $100 million to Harrison Street Securities.
