North Dakota State Investment Board, Bismarck, hired PGIM Fixed Income to manage $300 million in domestic core fixed income for the board's roughly $5.3 billion pension trust, said David Hunter, executive director and chief investment officer of the North Dakota Retirement and Investment Office, in an email.
The board initially selected Wells Capital Management's Montgomery core-fixed income team for the mandate in September. However, due to recent investment staff departures on the Montgomery team, including the departure of a co-head senior portfolio manager, the board decided to transfer the mandate to PGIM instead, materials prepared for the Nov. 17 board meeting show.
Funding is expected to come from the elimination of two agency mortgage-backed securities strategies managed by Pacific Investment Management Co. and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and two global fixed-income strategies managed by Brandywine Global Investment Management and UBS Asset Management. The MBS strategies totaled about $315 million and the global fixed-income strategies totaled about $260 million in September. The remaining assets will fund a $300 million domestic core bond account with PIMCO, which was awarded in August.
PGIM already manages $117.2 million and $181.1 million in core-plus fixed income for the board's $2 billion insurance trust and $4.7 billion legacy fund, respectively.
Separately, the board hired Mercer as an infrastructure investment consultant to assist the board in a search in 2018 for two new infrastructure managers for the legacy fund, insurance trust and possibly the pension trust. The board has about $500 million invested in infrastructure now, including nearly $250 million from the pension trust.
In other news, the board hired Financial Recovery Technologies for global securities litigation monitoring and claims filing. Further information could not immediately be learned.