Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, Washington, is seeking two investment managers to run a portion of each of the board's four index funds, according to an RFP issued May 31.
The $590.8 billion Thrift Savings Plan, the retirement plan for 5.6 million federal employees and members of the uniformed services, offers participants five investment funds: four index funds managed by BlackRock and one fund made up of specially issued Treasury securities that is managed internally by the board.
The F Fund is a bond index fund that tracks the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond index. This broad index includes U.S. government, agency, mortgage-backed, asset-backed, corporate and foreign government (issued in the U.S.) sectors of the U.S. bond market. As of April 30, the F Fund had $29.5 billion in assets.
The C Fund, a stock index fund that tracks the S&P 500 index, had $206.4 billion in assets as of April 30.
The S Fund is a stock index fund that tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Completion Total Stock Market index, a broad market index made up of stocks of U.S. companies not included in the S&P 500 index. As of April 30, the S Fund had $72.2 billion in assets.
The I Fund is a stock index fund that tracks the MSCI EAFE index, a broad market index made up of the equity markets of the developed world outside of the U.S. and Canada. The I Fund had $49.8 billion in assets as of April 30.
The board is making the move to mitigate risk, said Kim Weaver, director of external affairs. BlackRock is eligible to rebid.
The RFP is available at fbo.gov. Proposals are due by 4 p.m. EDT on July 12. The board expects to make a decision by December.