Indiana Public Retirement System, Indianapolis, on Friday approved outsourcing the management of its $5.1 billion annuity service account and hired MetLife as provider for the plan.
The board, which oversees a total of $29.7 billion in retirement assets, in December tentatively approved MetLife as lifetime annuity service provider, pending final approval to outsource annuity management.
INPRS now handles those duties in-house, but a bill signed by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in April 2014 allows the board to outsource such management starting in 2017.
MetLife will become provider on April 1, 2017. Voya Financial is the plan's record keeper.
Separately, the system hired RhumbLine Advisers to manage $136 million in passive domestic small-cap value equities. The portfolio's previous manager, Artisan Partners Asset Management, is liquidating the strategy.
Aeolus Capital Management was hired to manage $40 million in a catastrophe risk reinsurance portfolio. The exact funding source could not be immediately learned but it will come from the system's 9.4% absolute-return allocation.
Also, the board committed $100 million to BlackRock to run in a core real estate separate account, and made private equity commitments of $75 million to GSO Capital Opportunities Fund III, $60 million to Parthenon Investors V, and $56 million to Vista Equity Partners' Vista Foundation Fund III.
The GSO Capital Partners fund invests in mezzanine and distressed debt; the Parthenon Capital Partners fund targets health-care and technology companies; and the Vista portfolio focuses on midmarket software firms.
Speaking of Thursday's vote in the U.K. to leave the European Union, Scott Davis, interim chief investment officer, told the board the system should be well placed to withstand equity market volatility because of its 21.1% non-inflation-linked bond portfolio and its 7.5% inflation-linked fixed-income allocation. Brexit “is another example of not being able to predict. That why we've set out a diversified portfolio,” Mr. Davis said, with “more bonds, more TIPS.”
