Cincinnati Retirement System terminated Opus Capital Management from a $50 million active domestic small-cap value equity portfolio.
The $2.2 billion pension fund terminated the manager because “performance over past (seven) years was under benchmark,” according to recently released minutes of the May 4 meeting. The board approved the investment committee’s recommendation to terminate and moved the assets to a Russell 2000 Value index fund managed by Northern Trust Asset Management. Investment consultant Marquette Associates assisted.
“Given the city of Cincinnati’s emphasis on supplier diversity, we were disappointed to be terminated from this account, as we are a local, woman- and minority-owned firm whose net-of-fees performance matched our benchmark since the inception of the account in 2008,” Opus Capital said in a statement emailed by Adam Eagleston, principal and portfolio manager. “We generated strong absolute returns over this time and did so with less risk than our benchmark, which should be an important consideration for the retirement assets of our hard-working public servants.”
Whether a search for an active replacement is taking place could not be learned. Don Beresford, finance manager, did not reply to a request for further information.
