Ann Arbor (Mich.) Employees' Retirement System hired Russell Investments to handle the transition of $56 million in actively managed core fixed-income assets from terminated manager Bradford & Marzec.
Trustees of the $462 million pension fund approved the hire of Russell to oversee the move of the portfolio to Northern Trust Asset Management at their July 17 meeting, newly released minutes from the meeting showed. Northern Trust managed a total of $208.3 million in two equity and four fixed index strategies for Ann Arbor ERS as of March 31, a performance report from that date showed.
Northern Trust will manage the allocation in a mix of passively managed fixed-income strategies as set by the pension fund's consultant, Meketa Investment Group.
Northern Trust is also the pension fund's custodian and current transition manager, and also bid on the transition deal, the July 17 meeting minutes said.
Nancy R. Walker, the pension fund's executive director, was not available for comment.
Ann Arbor ERS trustees accepted Meketa's recommendation to cut ties with Bradford & Marzec on June 19 because of personnel changes at the firm and in response to a recommendation to move to a “combination of very low-cost passive investments and specialist fixed-income managers” to “create a low-cost, core-plus fixed-income structure that would be very competitive to an all active structure,” minutes from the June meeting said.
