Alaska Retirement Management Board, Juneau, added the BlackRock Strategic Completion Fund to the investment options lineup of the defined contribution plans it oversees, said Stephanie Alexander, spokeswoman, in an email.
The board added the multistrategy real assets fund to replace two passive funds: the U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust Index fund and U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities Index fund, from which participants will be mapped to the Strategic Completion Fund. The U.S. REIT and U.S. TIPS index funds had $67 million and $83 million in assets, respectively, as of Dec. 31, both managed by State Street Global Advisors. Ms. Alexander did not provide a reason for replacing the funds.
The board oversees the management of $32.6 billion in defined benefit and defined contribution plan assets, including the Alaska Public Employees' Retirement System's $1 billion DC plan, the state's $884 million Deferred Compensation Plan, and the Teachers' Retirement System's $426 million DC plan.
Separately, among the DB plan assets the board oversees, including the $18.6 billion Public Employees' Retirement System and $8.9 billion Teachers' Retirement System, the board terminated Allianz Global Investors from its $354 million absolute-return portfolio, Schroder Investment Management from a $336 million insurance-linked securities portfolio and Lazard Asset Management from its $67 million active emerging markets equity portfolio. The managers were terminated "primarily to consolidate the total number of individual investment strategies," Ms. Alexander said. How the funds will be reallocated will be determined at a later date, she added.
As of Dec. 31, PERS' actual allocations to international equity, absolute return and opportunistic fixed income were 19.3%, 7.3% and 5.5% respectively, according to April 5 board meeting materials. "The other (DB) plans exhibit similar modest and understandable variations from strategic target allocations," the materials said.
Ms. Alexander did not reply to requests for further information by press time.
