Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System terminated Fisher Investments from a $100 million active domestic small-cap value equity portfolio, said Jason Malinowski, chief investment officer, in an e-mail.
The $2.3 billion pension fund originally placed the firm on watch in February “because of potential personnel changes resulting from Ken Fisher relinquishing his CEO title without having named a successor, in addition to a general lack of transparency,” Mr. Malinowski said.
Mr. Malinowski also cited style drift as a reason the pension board ultimately voted to terminate the firm at its Aug. 13 meeting. He said the strategy held a “meaningful allocation to midcap stocks relative to its small-cap mandate.”
David Eckerly, Fisher Investments group vice president, could not provide a comment by press time.
He added the pension fund has yet to determine a long-term plan for reallocating the assets, but in the short term will allocate them passively through an existing overlay program.
Investment consultant NEPC assisted.
