Austin (Texas) City Employees' Retirement System hired Legal & General Investment Management America to passively manage about $124 million in domestic small-cap equities, said David T. Veal, chief investment officer, in an e-mail.
The LGIMA strategy will replace a similar Northern Trust index strategy. “The decision was based primarily on the ability to garner lower fees while also enhancing governance (LGIMA uses an independent trustee for their fund) and risk management (LGIMA has lending/non-lending share classes in the same fund, which makes it easier to move back and forth as desired),” Mr. Veal wrote.
Northern Trust remains the $2.2 billion pension fund’s largest money manager, with $211 million in a bond index strategy and $470 million in a scientific beta U.S. equity index strategy. Northern Trust is also the pension fund’s custodian.
A Northern Trust spokesman declined to comment.
