Japan's $1.24 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund, Tokyo, on Friday announced the selection of 14 active and five passive domestic equity managers.
Details on the sizes of the allocations weren't released.
In addition, the announcement, which appeared on the GPIF's website at the close of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, said the pension fund would use several new benchmark indexes, including the recently launched JPX-Nikkei 400 index, which focuses on companies with high return on equity, as well as smart beta indexes.
Until now, the pension fund has benchmarked all of its domestic equity investments to the TOPIX index of all companies listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Other changes announced Friday included a decision to start passive and active investments in Japanese real estate investment trusts, and the introduction of a “performance-based fee structure for some active managers.”
For traditional active managers, the GPIF named 11 money managers: Eastspring Investments, Invesco Asset Management (Japan), Capital International K.K., Seiryu Asset Management (subadvised by Taiyo Pacific Partners), Natixis Asset Management Japan (subadvised by Harris Associates), Nikko Asset Management, FIL Investments (Japan), Mizuho Asset Management, Russell Investments Japan (subadvised by Russell Implementation Services), J.P. Morgan Asset Management (Japan) and DIAM.
For the portion of the pension fund's active allocation to be managed against smart-beta indexes, the GPIF named three managers: Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Nomura Funds Research and Technologies (subadvised by Dimensional Fund Advisors), and Nomura Asset Management.
For the pension fund's passive allocations, the GPIF named five managers: DIAM, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking, BlackRock Japan and Mizuho Trust & Banking.
DIAM, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust and Mitsubishi UFJ Trust will have portfolios benchmarked against the JPX-Nikkei 400.
Further information could not be learned by press time.
