Indiana Public Retirement System, Indianapolis, committed $290 million to four managers.
It committed $90 million to Sumeru Equity Partners Fund, a growth-oriented private equity fund focused on North American midmarket technology companies, and $50 million to Related Real Estate Fund II, an opportunistic fund managed by Related Cos..
INPRS also committed an additional $150 million in total to risk-parity managers AQR Capital Management and Bridgewater Associates. AQR will get $100 million and Bridgewater will receive $50 million, boosting their totals to $1.2 billion each. The moves, made after June 30, were the result of an increase in INPRS’ risk-parity allocation to 12%, which was approved by the board in June. Reductions in global equity and real estate funded the shift to risk parity. No managers were terminated.
Separately, the pension fund returned -0.03% on its investments in the fiscal year ended June 30, largely the result of a 30.3% loss in its commodities portfolio.
Despite the loss from commodities, which accounted for 7.5% of system assets, INPRS investments outpaced its -0.12% custom benchmark return for the fiscal year, David Cooper, chief investment officer, said in a report to the $30 billion pension fund's board on Friday.
Total plan assets were down 0.9% from 12 months earlier.
The system's best-performing asset class was its 12.9% private equity allocation, which returned 10.9%. For its other asset classes, real estate returned 10.6%; absolute return, 3.77%; global equity, 2.39%; ex-inflation-linked fixed income, 1.54%; cash, 1.49%; inflation-linked fixed income, -0.09%; and risk parity, -3.14%.
Its remaining asset allocation as of June 30 was 22.4% global equity, 20.6% ex-inflation-linked fixed income, 10% each risk parity and inflation-linked fixed income, 9.4% absolute return, 6.2% real estate and the remainder in cash.
Friday was Mr. Cooper's final board meeting as CIO. He is leaving on Oct. 2 to become director of investments at the $2.8 billion Purdue Research Foundation, West Lafayette, Ind.
The board on Friday authorized interim CIO Scott Davis, INPRS' deputy CIO and director of public equity, to have delegated authority for manager selection, as Mr. Cooper now has. Steve Russo, executive director, recommended the move.
The system's investment policy allows the CIO to select managers without board approval for allocations of up to 3% of plan assets.
The board is in the process of forming a search committee to find a permanent CIO.
