Wyoming Retirement System, Cheyenne, hired Polunin Capital Partners and Harding Loevner to run $100 million each in active emerging markets equities, said Sam Masoudi, chief investment officer.
The $7.9 billion pension fund has hired a third manager, but Mr. Masoudi said the contract has yet to be finalized.
Mr. Masoudi said the managers were hired to give the pension fund its first active exposure to emerging markets equities. Previously, the pension fund’s 6% allocation to the asset class was passive. The pension fund had added 3% in synthetic emerging markets equity instruments at the beginning of 2014 with the intention of funding active management at a later date, according to Douglas Kidd, senior investment officer. Funding comes from those assets.
Also, the pension fund hired Abbott Capital Management to run a private equity “fund of one,” meaning a customized fund of funds in which Wyoming is the only investor. Abbott has made two commitments so far this year of $20 million each to Insight Venture Partners IX, a technology-focused growth equity fund, and EnCap Energy Capital Fund X , an oil and gas fund.
Separately, the pension fund committed $30 million to Blackstone Real Estate Partners VIII, managed by Blackstone Group, and $25 million to Ridgewood Energy Oil & Gas Fund III.
