Atlanta General Employees' Pension Fund hired Callan Associates as investment consultant, confirmed Jim Beard, the city's chief financial officer and member of the board of trustees of the $1.2 billion pension fund.
The pension fund's previous investment consultant, Gray & Co., submitted its resignation at the board's Oct. 2 meeting. Gray & Co. had been working on a month-by-month basis with the pension fund since the expiration of the firm's contract on Dec. 31, 2010.
An RFP originally had been approved in January 2012 due to the expired contract and was issued in October of that year. At the board's Jan. 9, 2013, meeting, Kristen Denius, assistant city attorney, said the RFP would need to be reissued because there was wording in the RFP “that asked for responses on a different set of services not intended to be included.” The RFP was reissued in August.
Gray & Co. resigned as consultant before the search was complete because of negative media attention resulting from trustee Angela Green filing a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this year.
Ms. Green had argued that Gray & Co. did not adequately reveal to the board that it was the manager of a private equity fund called GrayCo Alternative Partners II, to which the board had approved a commitment of up to $28 million in November 2012.
Other finalists in the consultant search were The Bogdahn Group and The Hackett Group.
