Iowa Municipal Fire & Police Retirement System, West Des Moines, hired BlackRock to manage about $200 million in its global allocation fund, said Terry Slattery, executive director of the $2.5 billion pension fund, in an email.
Funding will come from the full liquidation of Principal Global Investors' commercial mortgage-backed securities fund and reductions to existing multiasset managers Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co., J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Schroder Investment Management.
The pension fund has $44 million invested with Principal and approximately $250 million each invested with the three existing multiasset managers.
It is intended that the multiasset managers will have $200 million to $225 million each after the transfer to BlackRock.
Rebalancing was the reason for the Principal liquidation, Mr. Slattery said.
The assets from Principal will bring the pension fund's multiasset allocation up to 34%, closer to its 35% target. The pension fund has a 10% target to real estate and current allocation of 11.5%.
