Texas Municipal Retirement System, Austin, hired Albourne America as its first real-return and absolute-return consultant, spokeswoman Melanie Thomas said in an e-mail.
An RFP was issued in July.
The pension fund also received responses from Aksia, Callan Associates, Cliffwater and ORG Portfolio Management. Firms could respond to one or both positions. Cliffwater was the second-highest ranked firm in each category.
The $23.4 billion pension fund has a 5% target allocation each to absolute return and real return.
The pension fund classifies absolute-return investments as hedge funds of funds, multistrategy hedge funds and single-strategy hedge funds. Real-return investments may include Treasury inflation-protected securities, master limited partnerships, listed and unlisted infrastructure, farmland, timberland, real estate, REITs, commodities, mining, floating-rate lending strategies and agribusiness.