Goldman Sachs Asset Management is in the process of dropping Fisher Investments as one of its subadviser for its $598 million GS Multi-Manager Global Equity Fund, a Goldman spokesman confirmed Friday.
Goldman joins a growing list of institutional clients that have pulled the plug on mandates overseen by Fisher following sexist comments made by the firm's Founder, Executive Chairman and co-Chief Investment Officer Kenneth L. Fisher at the Tiburon CEO Summit in San Francisco on Oct. 8.
The list includes $28.5 billion Texas Employees Retirement System, Austin, which also announced Friday that it is terminating Fisher Investments, bringing total reported terminations to $2.99 billion.
“Mr. Fisher's comments were a factor in this decision,” the Goldman spokesman said, while declining to comment on what portion of the fund, which has multiple subadvisers, Fisher manages.
Fisher's termination will be effective Oct. 31, according to a recent fund filing for the GS Multi-Manager Global Equity Fund.
The decision marks the second known subadvisory deal to have ended with Fisher Investments following the founder's remarks.
On Monday, Fidelity Investments terminated Fisher Investments as a subadviser running $500 million in active U.S. small-cap equities, a Fidelity spokesman confirmed.
Camas, Wash.-based Fisher Investments had $112 billion in assets under management as of Sept. 30.
In a statement Friday, officials from Texas Employees Retirement System said that “with respect to our fiduciary duty, we are defunding Fisher Investments” for management of $350 million in actively managed international equities.
Assets redeemed from Fisher are being redistributed to other equity managers, Mary Jane Wardlow, a spokeswoman for the fund confirmed.
Also terminating Fisher Investments was the $212 million Westfield (Mass.) Retirement Board for a $4.3 million emerging markets strategy and the retirement plan of University Hospital Health System, Cleveland, for a $26 million portfolio. University Hospital Health System had $864 million in assets as of Dec. 31.
Bloomberg contributed to this story.
