Oklahoma Police Pension & Retirement System, Oklahoma City, hired AllianceBernstein to manage between $60 million and $65 million in emerging markets equity, said Steven Snyder, executive director and chief investment officer.
Funding will come from emerging markets manager Vontobel Assset Management, which was terminated from a similar strategy in March because of the departure of Rajiv Jain, chief investment officer of Vontobel’s quality growth equities boutique.
An RFP for emerging markets equity managers was issued in April. The other finalists were Harding Loevner and WCM Investment Management.
Following Vontobel’s termination, assets were temporarily parked in an emerging markets equity index fund managed by Northern Trust Asset Management.
Separately, the $2.2 billion pension fund returned a net -0.61% for the fiscal year ended June 30, falling short of its -0.34% benchmark return.
Equity (public and private) returned -1.8%; fixed income, 1%; and real assets, 5.1%.
As of June 30, the pension fund had an asset allocation of 17.6% U.S. large-cap equity, 13.8% long/short equity, 9.4% international developed markets equity, 9.3% multisector fixed income, 8.6% private equity, 8.2% absolute return, 7.8% core bonds, 7% U.S. smidcap equity, 6% core real estate, 4.3% emerging markets equity, 3.6% commodities, 2.6% opportunistic real estate, and the rest in cash and equivalents.
Longer term, for the three, five and 10 years ended June 30, the pension fund returned an annualized net 5.72%, 5.92% and 5.29%, respectively, vs. its benchmarks of 5.64%, 6.39%, and 5.33% in each of those periods.
